PoliceWoman

3/19/2009

On Monday night, I started off playing Samurai-ko (36 katana/will scrapper), duoing the Frontline badge mission with a blaster, which got Samurai-ko to level 37.

I then switched to Idealist (43 fire/thermal controller) and formed an 8-player pickup team mostly doing missions in Peregrine Island. We beat up the Clockwork King for the Emancipator badge and got started on Tina McIntyre's Praetorian story arc, which got Idealist to level 44, where I took Fire Shield.

After that team broke up, I joined a Manticore TF, playing Linda Lightspeed (33 kin/rad defender), on a team of:

peacebringer
4 scrappers
3 defenders (2 kin including me, 1 dark)

This TF went blazingly fast. I picture Linda Lightspeed as being a classic comic-book superspeedster so I was always rushing to the next mission as fast as possible, stealthing to the end, team TPing people there, and urging people to hurry-up. And with double SB, double fulcrum shift and a bunch of scrappers, it felt like we beat up bad guys very fast indeed. One team member described this as "by far the most brutal team I've been on." We finished the TF in 53min 57sec, well below my current average of 90 minutes for Manticore.

Linda started at the bottom of 33 and I turned her exp gain off when she reached 33.9, as I'm thinking about keeping her at level 33 in order to gather merits for random Pool C rolls at that level. With SB and stealth, Linda seems to make all TF teams go a lot faster, so she seems an ideal TF runner for purposes of gaining merits.

Manticore awarded 32 merits, and after the TF, I burned 40 of Linda's merits on Pool C draws, receiving:

1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.613M
1 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.189M

Getting the Touch of the Nictus recipe motivated me to slot Linda's Transfusion power with 5 Touch of the Nictus (all but the proc) and 1 Efficiency Adaptor (RCHG/ACC), which makes the power +94.1% heal, +79.9% acc, +63.1% rchg and +35.9 endrdx, and gives global bonuses of +1.88% maxHP, +9% accuracy, +5% global heal, and +2.25% maxEND, which seemed pretty good.

On Tuesday night, I started off playing Mercy Beaucoup (42 emp/ice defender), recruiting and leading an 8 player pickup team running door missions. We beat up Countess Crey, had a wipe against Nemesis and another against Council, and got Mercy to level 43.

Late on Tuesday night, I joined a Synapse TF playing Star Amethyst (16 warshade). Our team was:

cold/ice defender
warshade (me)
mind/storm controller
shield/axe tanker
nrg/nrg blaster
bs/regen scrapper

We were a little nervous because we didn't have a "healer" (the stormy didn't take his), but decided to try it anyway. Turned out we were just fine; the defender's cold shields plus cold and storm debuffs nerfed the clockworks into not being very threatening. This TF started pretty late and so I was barely awake near the end, sleepwalking through the last few missions; I think I wasn't playing very well, which probably slowed things down. Nevertheless we beat up Babbage and the Clockwork King and completed the TF in 3hrs 10mins. Star Amethyst got to level 20, taking Gravity Well and Stamina as powers.

On Wednesday night, I started off playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), joining an 8-player pickup team for one Praetorian mission in Peregrine Island. Then I switched to Thunder Girl (50 will/nrg tanker) to join an Imperious TF that was asking for a tanker on LBX. Our team mix was:

1 scrapper
4 controllers (kin, storm, 2 rads)
2 blasters
1 tanker (me)

I had a really tough time keeping aggro on this team, and I felt bad that a couple of the controllers seemed to constantly be dying over and over, and I'm not quite sure why; I tried to use Taunt, Fireball and Whirling Hands to get things mad at me, but the controllers were simply better at dying than I was at keeping them alive. My best guess is that they were sometimes getting separated, and at other times were heavily using AoE immobs (Fire Cages and Crushing Field) which seem to generate a lot of aggro. We also had one blaster who took an unannounced AFK for about half the TF, which seemed a little rude, but returned for the last mission.

In the last mission, our plan was to go straight up the middle. It seemed to me that someone else jumped the gun and pulled Romulus before I (the tanker) could jump in and aggro him, which caused Romulus and his attendant AVs to get scattered around over some distance, making it hard for me to taunt them all. We got things under control after awhile though. The scrapper suggested that I try and taunt the healer Nictus away from Romulus; this didn't seem like it would work to me, since I was tanking Romulus at the time and I figured both would follow me. But I gave it a try and I actually was able to move the healer Nictus away, because Romulus (though still aggro on me) was immobed by the controllers so couldn't move! So the AoE immobs actually helped, here! Anyway, we ended up finishing the ITF in 1hr 49mins. I got a couple moderately nice recipe drops: a level 50 Positron's Blast (DMG/END) and a level 50 Mako's Bite (ACC/DMG/END/RCHG).

After that, I did a Hess TF playing Linda Lightspeed (33 kin/rad defender), on a team of

1 scrapper
2 defenders
1 controller
2 blasters

This went blazingly fast, finishing in 28mins 47sec; Linda's SB and stealth definitely felt like it helped speed things along. I spent 20 merits from this on a Pool C draw, getting a fairly lame Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/ENDRDX) with a Wentworths value of only 25K. Oh well, they can't all be worth millions!


[u]Market manipulation[u]
Sold:
10 Essence of the Furies (200K to 224K)
10 Magical Conspiracy (177K)
10 Photonic Weapon (949K)
73 Positronic Matrix (150K to 205K)
44 Rikti Alloy (200K to 400K)

Bought:
40 Essence of the Furies (80K to 101K)
20 Photonic Weapon (550K to 608K)
36 Positronic Matrix (76K to 88K)
60 Rikti Alloy (90K to 100K)

I started with 278.916M infl on Monday night, but forgot to write down how much I ended up with on Wednesday night. I think I made a couple million, but most of my profits got reinvested into acquiring inventory. It feels like only a few items move really well for me (Positronic Matrix and Rikti Alloy over these few days) while others languish on my broker for long periods of time; not sure if I should re-price them (losing a broker commission I've already paid) or get out of their markets entirely.


[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
2 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run) Wentw=8.4M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
3 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.613M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.189M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=471K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=25K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 370.697M infl, 1380 merits, 269K infl/merit


PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 99.6M infl, 325 merits, 306K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Miracle (+recovery) BMkt=100M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 259.156M infa, 340 merits, 762K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.44MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 57.86mins (avg of 6 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
23.62MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 48.26mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.30MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 35.30mins (avg of 6 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

3/16/2009

Spent a lot of time this weekend at Wentworth's, working on my new marketeering sideline. Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) started Friday night with 254.502M infl, and over the weekend:

sold:
71 Rikti Alloy
37 Positronic Matrix
20 Photonic Weapon
40 Essence of the Furies
29 Diamond
17 Magical Conspiracy

bought:
49 Rikti Alloy
25 Positronic Matrix
20 Photonic Weapon
45 Essence of the Furies
10 Magical Conspiracy

...and ended Sunday night with 278.916M infl, a net gain of +24.414M over the weekend (about 8M per day). I did sell more stuff than I bought, though, unloading a bunch of rare salvage that I had built up earlier. Flipping mid-value Rikti Alloy and Essence of the Furies really did well for me, and both of them had very quick turnover. My investments at the high end and low end have both gone poorly, however; I'm sitting on around 20 Prophecies that I bought earlier and have psychologically been unable to mark down below 2M infl (since I believe they should be more valuable), so I have sold zero of them and they've been stuffing up my inventory uselessly. I also had bought far too many Diamonds earlier, having set my buy price a little too high, and I ended up dumping them at a low price just to clear inventory.

I also noticed other buyers adjusting their buy prices to react to mine (a couple times their buy price would be 1 more than mine) and found myself adjusting my own buy prices in response. It was market PvP indeed!

Okay, on to actual gameplay. On Friday night, I played Kyrie Eleison (29 bs/inv scrapper) on a 1st hero respec, with a team of:

2 blasters
peacebringer
3 scrappers (including me)
emp/ice defender
grav/storm controller

We had no real problems with the respec and finished it in 1hr 17mins; strangely, it awarded 27 merits, which is unlike the other hero respecs which award only 20. Kyrie got to level 31 on this trial and took Build Up at level 30. Kyrie also got a compliment on her costume, and had someone actually recognize what her name meant, which was nice.

On Saturday night I played Blond Justice (46 bs/shield scrapper) on an Invincible-difficulty Faathim the Kind TF with a team mix of:

2 dark/rad defenders
2 psy/mental blasters
cold/ice defender
ill/emp controller
bs/shield scrapper (me)
spine/dark scrapper

Although we had great buffs, and I made sure to SK up, it seemed like the darn Rularuu could still smash me straight through my capped defense. Looking in the combat spam, they still had a good chance to hit me even when I had +90% to +100% defense from stacked Shield Defense, Fortitude, Ice Shields, Shadow Fall and Arctic Fog. The dark scrapper ended up being "tank" for us (his psy resist surely helped) but got caged a lot. We had a team wipe in the second mission as a result of the pure nastiness of the Rularuu, but came back and pressed on. I was actually relieved when the TF switched to having us fight Nemesis, who only have stacked vengeance. Despite this, we had a good team with good players and we got through the TF in 3hrs 24mins, gaining 73 merits, and getting Blond Justice to level 48.

On Sunday morning I played Kyrie again, this time on a Manticore TF organized on the Sisterhood channel, with a team mix of:

3 scrappers (including me)
2 blasters
3 defenders (storm, rad, emp)

We had no problems and stealthed most of it, finishing in 1hr 13mins and gaining 32 merits. Kyrie got to level 32 and took Headsplitter, and I went ahead and solo'd Serafina's vendor mission in order to buy level 35 SOs.

Later that afternoon I played Millie Volt (24 elec/inv brute) on a mid sized team of Fallen LEGION SG (started at 3 players and grew to 6 eventually) doing missions in Sharkhead and Nerva. We did the Agent of Discord badge mission, then had a wipe in a CoT mission where we had overaggroed too much stuff, then another wipe in a Legacy Chain mission in a dangerous intersection where groups aggroed from both sides. Nevertheless it mostly went well and Millie got to level 26, where I took Kick (as prereq for Tough).

That evening I joined a speed run of the Sharkhead SF, playing Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker). Our team mix was:

3 stalkers
1 dominator
2 brutes
2 corruptors

We stealthed pretty much everything and finished the SF in a blazing 33mins, gaining 22 merits. One of the villains who had teamed with me on a lot of SFs invited me to a Liberty villains specific channel, which was really nice of him; villain teams and SFs are hard to get together sometimes, so networking with more villain players seems terrific. I also immediately burned 20 of my merits on a random Pool C roll, and hit the jackpot with a level 33 Miracle (+recovery) recipe, valued at the Black Market at 100M infamy! I greedily squirreled it away for my own use rather than selling it, though.

Spy Girl ran a couple flashbacks for more merits, finishing a Vahzilok Conference arc in 19min 11sec (I was kinda slacking) and a Vendetti Traitor mission in 4min 29sec. While doing flashbacks, Spy Girl had a mastermind ask me if I'd help him fight a Nosferatu AV, which I agreed to. Little did I realize he actually was inviting me to the Mender Lazarus SF; I went along with it, though, and we got started with a team of:

necro/dark MM
robo/dark MM
MA/ninj stalker (me)

We were on high difficulty and scored a lot of exp; I really wanted to keep Spy Girl at level 33 for more merit farming, though, so I used the option to turn off exp when she got to around 33.9. We fought enough Council that I got The Slayer badge. In the first mission, the Nosferatu AV showed up in an ambush and we weren't really ready for him, so he promptly wiped the floor with us. After recovering from that, we beat Nosferatu in a close fight.

In the second mission, the Burkholder AV showed up and promptly killed both masterminds. I slammed a bunch of inspirations and uncorked a Shivan and had a moment of awesomeness as I managed to solo the AV after a hard fight.

The final mission had three Council AVs and we started clearing the floor beneath them when a rabid pet aggroed all 3 AVs onto us and caused a team wipe. After we recovered from that, I managed to single pull Vandal using Spy Girl's Revolver temp power, and we killed him; then we pulled Requiem and got him fairly low on life when a huge Council ambush spawned and wiped the team. We came back from the hospital and managed to finish off Requiem without another ambush, then we attacked Maestro and spawned another ambush which again wiped us out. After we got back from the hospital again, we managed to kill off Maestro without further incident. Finished the TF in 2hrs 3mins and got a measly 6 merits, which seemed a pretty weak reward for the effort required.



[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
2 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run) Wentw=8.4M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.92M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
2 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.412M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=471K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
2 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=52K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 367.984M infl, 1320 merits, 279K infl/merit


PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 99.6M infl, 325 merits, 306K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Miracle (+recovery) BMkt=100M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 259.156M infa, 340 merits, 762K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.44MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 57.86mins (avg of 6 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
21.26MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 90.33mins (avg of 6 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.30MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 35.30mins (avg of 6 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

3/13/2009

I dove deeply into the morass of Wentworths marketeering last night. As Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), I tried my hand at flipping rare salvage on hero side; I checked Wentworths 3 times over the course of the evening.

Police Woman started the evening with 245,395,365 influence.
I sold: 7 Photonic Weapon, 18 Positronic Matrix, 20 Rikti Alloy, 10 Essence of the Furies
I bought: 10 Magical Conspiracy, 15 Essence of the Furies, 30 Rikti Alloy, 20 Positronic Matrix
Police Woman finished the evening with 254,502,330 influence. (+9.1M infl)

Not too bad for a first effort.

Heroes were calling for help in Recluse's Victory, so I brought Police Woman into RV to try and help out. I joined up with 3 scrappers and we faced what appeared to be a team of 4 stalkers. The villains were a lot better coordinated than we were; my scrapper teammates had a bad habit of jumping into fights on their own, and the villains would happily triple-team us and defeat us in detail. I got a few kills, but we got the worst of it for awhile, until another blaster showed up and some of the stalkers left, which seemed to tip the balance in our favor. Before long heroes had overrun RV and the few stalkers left switched from actual PvP to trash talking on broadcast (ironically, one even called me immature for asking them to stop the trash talk and come kill us).

This wasn't very fun, so I switched to Mayday (50 fortunata) and came back to Recluse's Victory to try and even things up. Joined a team of 2 stalkers and jousted with heroes a bit; more heroes came into RV after that and we were pretty badly outnumbered. I found that fortunata are not quite as invincible as I had supposed; they seem so hard to hit when I'm on blue side, but while in RV it seemed like a spine scrapper, broadsword scrapper, archery/dev blaster, AR/dev blaster and sonic/nrg blaster were all able to hit me just fine, presumably due to Focused Accuracy and Targeting Drones. I dunno how the sonic blaster kept hitting me; his Shouts, formerly a stupid power in PvP, seemed incredibly strong though.

When I noticed an ill/emp controller had joined the hero side, I switched to Paris Holiday (49 fire/thermal corruptor) hoping to give the villain side some healing support too. I found post-I13 PvP healing to be incredibly difficult, maybe even impossible. I barely notice travel suppression on Police Woman (who has no travel powers) but it was utterly devastating for Paris, who has the pre-I13 PvP travel suite of SJ and SSpd. It seemed like any time I healed a teammate, I would quickly get targeted, movement-suppressed, and killed by a mob of heroes. I couldn't figure out any way to meaningfully contribute as a support toon other than buffing the thermal shields. The ill/emp didn't seem to have these problems, but she was Superior Invis and flying and had fewer people going after her, so maybe that all helped.

Anyway, I eventually got tired of PvPing and switched to playing Millie Volt (23 elec/inv brute), duoing the Origin of Power mission with another 23 brute, then soloing a bit until level 24, where I took Resist Energies (to help against those horrible energy-draining Mu and the negative-using CoT ghosts).

After that I played Mayday on a quick Lady Grey TF with a team of:

elec/stone brute
robo/poison MM
ice/kin corruptor
dark/dark brute
? defender
? blaster
? scrapper
fortunata (me)

We blitzed through it easily in 48min 35sec.

Finished the night checking Wentworth's on Police Woman, with the results described above.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.44MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 57.86mins (avg of 6 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
20.47MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 93.8mins (avg of 5 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.30MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 35.30mins (avg of 6 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

3/12/2009

I started the evening playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), joining the 10,000,000 bullet ITF, which was restricted to characters who use guns. It took some time to fill up this TF with gun users, but we finally got started with a team of:

1 AR/fire blaster
5 AR/dev blasters (including me)
1 AR/dark corruptor
1 AR/nrg blaster

I had some misgivings about a TF with 7 blasters and had offered to play a thug MM or a wolf spider for extra buff/debuff, but the team seemed to prefer I bring Police Woman (who, as my main character, is the best slotted with IOs). I thought we would have trouble handling the alpha strikes from big groups of Romans, but it actually worked out pretty well, as we pretty much met all opponents with a hail of AoE that vaporized them before they could seriously hurt us. Caltrops were used to keep hard targets like bosses and EBs at bay. We did have a good number of deaths, especially the AR/nrg blaster, who liked to mix it up in melee range.

We cleared the first two missions with relative ease. On the third mission, we cleared our way up through the valley of lag, tearing apart all the Roman ambushes with automatic fire, and the robots guarding the Phalanx computer were handled by killing them as they woke up, which worked reasonably well. On the final mission, we skipped ahead to the final encounter, where we cleared around Romulus a bit. Our strategy was to try and snipe the Nictus AVs from range, rather than try to tank them all; one of the blasters, however, immediately opened with an AoE LRM Rocket which aggroed the whole spawn and forced us to run. After regrouping, we moved back and started sniping at the healy Nictus from range. I found that I could use Surveillance from far enough away that they wouldn't aggro, so we could even debuff the AVs a little as we whittled away at their health. And 7 blasters + 1 corruptor can lay down a lot of damage even at that range. Comically, though, on two more occasions some blaster got trigger happy and launched another LRM Rocket at the spawn, forcing us to run away yet again, then regroup again. It was even a different person each time it happened, which was kinda funny. Nevertheless we eventually dropped all the Nictus AVs, made short work of the now-solo Romulus, and finished by clearing a bunch of Romans from the towers. Overall we did much better than I'd expect such an unbalanced team to do, finishing in 1hr 38mins, a very respectable time.


After that I joined a Katie TF as Fire Emerald (34 fire/fire blaster). Our team was 1 tank, 2 scrappers, 3 blasters, kin defender and TA controller. This TF ran a little slow; I had some red SOs due to not having upgraded to 35 SOs yet (hadn't done the vendor mission yet), and most of the team was close to the low end of the 30-34 level range, all of which made our DPS a little on the low side. We finished in 39mins 58sec, and Fire Emerald reached 35, where I picked up the Consume power. I also went to Rikti War Zone, where I can buy 35 SOs without doing a mission, and then quickly ran through Levantera's arc to join Vanguard.


Also, inspired by the story of someone going from level 1 newbie to level 50 billionaire in 30 days, I started investing heavily into the market on hero side. Police Woman, my main character for nearly 5 years, has only about a quarter billion influence; the idea that someone can start from nothing and make a billion infl in a month makes me feel like I've been slacking. I used to flip HOs for spare cash in the early days of the market, but had gotten out of the habit when the supply dried up. I threw some initial buy and sell offers for rare salvage and mid-high level recipes on Wentworth's; I don't have a good feel for prices yet, so I'll probably need to feel things out for a bit. I may start tracking Police Woman's infl totals to try and measure progress on this front.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
39.18MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 59.72mins (avg of 5 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
20.47MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 93.8mins (avg of 5 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.30MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 35.30mins (avg of 6 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

3/11/2009

On Monday night, I played Blond Justice (45 broadsword/shield scrapper), recruiting and leading an 8-player team of some friends and some pickup people doing level 44-47ish missions on hero side all night. We mostly fought psychic Clockwork, Nemesis and Carnies. We defeated a psychic Clockwork King AV whose psy attacks were somewhat nerfed by our dark defender. Blond Justice got a compliment on her costume (from a teammate), a compliment on her blindfolded, sword-wielding Justice concept (from a random Wentworths passerby), and had a teammate say that it looked like Blond was "spanking" Ring Mistresses with her sword... and after that comment, my mind was totally corrupted and I found it was really hard for me to see the "Disembowel" animation as anything else. (Sorry, I wasn't able to get a screen shot of this. )

Blond got to level 46 and threw her 3 extra slots into True Grit, making it six slotted. After some debate, I ended up slotting 3 Numina's Convalescence and 3 Miracle into this power, including both the Numina and Miracle uniques, which had the net effect of giving me +32% regen, +27.5% recovery, and +3.75% max HPs. My alternative slotting would've been 3 generic HEAL and 3 generic RES IOs, which would have been infinitely cheaper and given me some extra resists to weird damage types, but would miss out on the regen/recovery bonuses.

On Tuesday night, I got on late and joined a "quick" Lady Grey TF as Mayday (50 fortunata). Our team mix was:

stalker
3 fortunatas
2 blasters
scrapper
kin corruptor

Having only a single kin for support seemed a little dubious to me, but actually the TF went fine, since we stealthed practically all of it, and triple stacked Mind Link and Tactical Training: Maneuvers gave us all a lot of defense.

With stealth and high defense I found myself joining the stealthers to try and accomplish objectives (this is much more fun than sitting at the door, IMHO). In the first mission, I reached Penelope Yin's prison and apparently aggroed far more than was strictly necessary; I thought killing the 2 generators would be enough to free Penny, but ended up fighting the entire roomful of Rikti. This was something I was capable of doing (okay, so the stalker and another fortunata helped some) but took awhile. Killing the special War Mesmerist Rikti seemed to actually free Penny, after which we got team TP'd up to fight the Clockwork King.

The rest of the TF was pretty straightforward; we had some deaths against the Riders and against Hamidon, so I got to use Vengeance and medicine pool Resuscitate a good amount, but the deaths never really slowed us down. In the final mission the Honoree went Unstoppable which caused him to ignore a lot of damage, but I found that psy attacks were still doing full damage, so the 3 fortunata were able to kill him through Unstoppable. We finished the TF in a very speedy 47mins 8sec.

With the recent merit tweaking, the LGTF now seems to be the best merits per hour of any activity, even with the changes that prevent failing more than one mission.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
39.18MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 59.72mins (avg of 5 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
20.47MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 93.8mins (avg of 5 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.74MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.70mins (avg of 23 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.72MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 34.36mins (avg of 5 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

My strategy has been to mostly spend merits on random task force recipes in the "35-39" range (note: you can roll on this table even at level 33, which is mostly what I do). I've had good luck with this; the "35-39" range has a lot less junk than the "30-34" range, while preserving the chance to hit the jackpot with several big ticket recipes still in the mix.

I personally like to get level 33 IO set recipes, because I like to be able to exemp down to as low as level 30 and keep the IO set bonuses. Random recipe draws are always awarded at a level equal to your character's level (or the nearest to that level the recipe can be), so as a result I try to make most of my random recipe draws on level 33 alts. On villain side, I've been purposely keeping Spy Girl at level 33 specifically for this reason, doing Ouroboros flashbacks and occasional SFs for merits. I was going to have an alt to do the same on hero side, but it seems like I create new alts and level them up to 33 at a high enough rate that I don't need to specifically hold one back at level 33. For new hero alts, I tend to do task forces to level them up, then save up all their merits until they reach level 33, then I use them all on random pool C recipes in a big spending spree.

This of course raises the question of what to do with reward merits on alts that are higher than level 33. Well, I often do another set of random recipe draws at level 41 (which can be used to exemp down into Warburg). Characters higher than that often get merits from ITFs and LGTFs, though, and I've been banking those merits towards purchasing specific recipes, which does let you specify exactly what level you want them at. So far I've bought one Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) and one Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) this way, costing me 325 merits. This method lets you get exactly the recipe you want, but is very expensive (325 merits == 16 pool C recipe draws!).

Of course if you prefer level 50 recipes (and there are good reasons to do so, since they have the highest enhancement bonuses) you can freely use merits for random recipes at level 50, too.

I've been tracking the Wentworth's price of stuff I get both from random rolls and from specific recipe purchases, in hopes of divining which strategy is actually more cost-effective. They're surprisingly close on hero side. On villain side, though, recipes are so scarce that a lot of them are very expensive, so random recipes are quite worth it.

This strategy works for me, but your mileage may vary. Hope that helped!

3/9/2009

Work has kept me busy so it's been quite awhile since my last update; this entry will be a little long and a little compressed as a result.

Testing some other villain arcs for merits/hour, Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd a flashback of "Forging the Blackwand" (level 29) in 35mins 40sec for 8 merits. Then she also solo'd a flashback of "Kings of the Sky" (level 24) in 18mins 9sec for 4 merits. Both were around 13MPH, not great but not bad.

Several people were complaining on LBx they could never find teams on red side, so I briefly played Schadenfreude (38 AR/pain corruptor) and tried to invite them all to a team. One declined my invite, one joined for one mission, then quit to join an ITF, and one person (another Nazi-themed AR corruptor) actually stayed on my team and duo'd for awhile. This experience kind of soured me on responding to some of the complainers who claim they can never find a team; it seems like they enjoy complaining more than they like actually playing.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) solo'd a flashback of "To Save a Soul" (level 45), with players debuffed and no travel powers. This was horribly painful and long; the worst part was two separate "Defeat 45 Carnies in Peregrine Island" hunts that I had to do while debuffed and exemped to level 45. There weren't that many low level Carnies I could find, so I had to linger in Peregrine Island through several spawn cycles to complete each hunt, which was a huge time waster. Turned down 2 team invites while working on this dreadful flashback, which had 17 missions, took 2hrs 56mins, and awarded me a trifling 15 merits. I did get the Reckless and Stemmed badges though.

Blond Justice (41 bs/shield scrapper) knocked out a grey Unity Cure story arc for 10 merits, then burned 120 merits on 6 Pool C rolls, receiving:

1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Executioner's Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
1 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=471K
1 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=52K
1 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=2.78M

Blond Justice (41 bs/shield scrapper) joined an Unyielding ITF with 3 corruptors, 2 brutes, tanker, dominator and me as a scrapper. Despite having near capped defense, I still died a lot due to cascading defense debuffs overwhelming my normal defense totals. We had a lot of players disconnect; the worst it got was during the third mission where all but 3 players were disconnected or AFK and the remaining 3 of us were all melee trying to fight through the valley of lag. Most of the disconnected people came back after awhile though and we still managed to finish in 1hr 39mins.

Samurai-ko (30 katana/will scrapper) joined a Manticore TF of mostly Sisterhood & friends, with a team of 1 controller, 3 defenders, 1 blaster, 1 peacebringer, 1 scrapper, 1 tanker. The tanker wanted to stealth missions, which no one minded, but she didn't actually have the ability to TP anyone, so she asked us to clear the way to help out. As a result, I ended up doing most of the "tanking" while the tanker pounded away at the objective in the final room with abysmally low tanker DPS; several missions the team cleared about 80% of the mission, then the tanker knocked out the last mob in the final room and the mission would end. Despite these hijinks we finished in 1hr 54mins, getting Samurai-ko to 32 and Golden Dragonfly.

Idolator (29 mind/fire dominator) joined a Sharkhead SF with a team mix of 3 brutes, 2 widows, 2 stalkers and 1 dominator. We mostly stealthed this, though it was a bit chaotic because some of us didn't actually have stealth and pretending to be stealthy drew a lot of aggro. Truthfully, the main brute did practically everything in this SF, stealthing to the end and completing objectives, while most of us were just bystanders; brute DPS made this pretty fast, finishing in 40mins 26sec.

Later on, Samurai-ko (32 katana/will scrapper) joined a Katie TF with 3 defenders, 1 blaster, 1 scrapper, 1 defender and 2 controllers, finishing in 25mins 47sec and getting Samurai-ko to level 33. While in Croatoa, the team also knocked out 2 Jack-in-Irons and 1 Eochai giant monster, for an extra 6 merits. After that, Samurai-ko used 160 merits on random Pool C rolls, getting:

1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.412M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.36M
1 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=27K
1 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run) Wentw=8.4M
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=422K

Blond Justice (43 bs/shield scrapper) did another ITF, this time with a team of 8 different ATs - a crab, dominator, brute, blaster, controller, tanker, corruptor and scrapper. Finished in 1hr 40mins and got Blond to 44, where she opened an epic pool by taking Conserve Power.

Blond Justice then did a Dr Quaterfield TF, with a team of 2 controllers, 2 scrappers, 1 tanker, 1 blaster (and a couple padders who quit immediately after the TF wsa formed, leaving us with a team of 6). This team was all very experienced and fun people who made this ordinarily dreary TF pretty fun, despite the occasional graphic description of moose anatomy in team chat. Or maybe because of that. In any case, we finished in 4hrs 33mins, getting a huge 111 merits, the Portal Smasher badge, level 45 for Blond Justice (at which point she became exemped to 44) and unlocking both the Rularuu Sword and Rularuu Shield.

Mercy Beaucoup (41 emp/ice defender) attempted an ITF with a team of 1 defender (me), 1 controller, 3 blasters, 1 peacebringer, 1 tanker, 1 scrapper. We were mostly level 40-43 and originally intended to run as a level 43 TF, facing level 43 enemies, but the last person to join was a level 45 causing the TF to spawn level 45 enemies which were +4 to +6 to most of the team. We decided to try this anyway. It went extremely poorly. The blasters tended to attack before the tanker, the tanker complained that the team was going too slowly (but would run around in granite armor with no speed boost). I was the only healer/buffer on the team (the controller was a TA; don't get me wrong, I like TA debuffs, but they didn't help people stay alive) and was going crazy trying to keep people alive through buffing and healing, which was very hard because everyone on the team was taking damage at the same time due to the high level of the opponents and poor aggro control by the team. I didn't have Resurrect as one of Mercy's powers, which normally is no problem since awakens are so common, but my teammates seemed rather disappointed that I couldn't rez them, and I started feeling guilty about it after about the fifth total team wipe. Finally during the third mission the level 45 blaster and the stone tanker both disconnected and didn't come back, which basically left us high and dry, so we called it quits.

Several of the team members wanted to re-try the ITF right away, and I did kind of want to have a better experience, so I agreed to this. I felt like aggro control had been a problem for us, and so I switched to my own tanker, Thunder Girl (50 will/nrg tanker); I don't claim to be an amazing tanker but I felt pretty sure I could do better than we were doing in the previous team. I also basically hijacked the star from the leader of the previous TF, and recruited my own team around the remnants of the previous TF. I ended up with 1 tanker (me), 1 blaster, 1 kin controller, 1 rad defender, 1 scrapper, 1 dark corruptor, 1 cold corruptor, and someone else I forgot to write down. We had no empath this time, but with kin/rad/dark/cold we had much, much more support than the previous run. This went so much better that after the first mission, the team demanded that I raise difficulty from Heroic to Unyielding. Finished that run in 1hr 44mins (a little slow; we cleared more than we strictly needed to) without any serious problems.

Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) joined a Sharkhead SF with 2 corruptors, 2 stalkers, 3 brutes and 1 MM. We managed to fail the first mission by overaggroing while escorting Barracuda to her goal and getting both her and ourselves killed, but got it right on the second try and finished the rest of the SF in 48mins 34sec without trouble. As a stalker with Recall Friend, I actually felt pretty useful on this SF.

Spy Girl went on to do 4 runs of the Vahzilok Conference flashback (purely for merits), clocking in at 19min 43sec, 20min 16sec, 18min 35sec, and 17min 50sec. She went on to spend 60 merits on Pool C recipe draws, gaining:

1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M

Samurai-ko (33 katana/will scrapper) exemped down for a Sister Psyche TF on Rugged. Team was 1 peacebringer, 2 scrappers, 3 defenders, 2 blasters; we had no problems and finished in 1hr 32mins. Spent 40 merits from this on Pool C recipe draws, receiving:

1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K

Fire Emerald (32 fire/fire blaster) did a Manticore TF with a team of 2 blasters, 2 controllers, 3 defenders, 1 tanker. We didn't have stealth so we cleared everything; took a little longer but we had no problems, finishing in 2hrs 17mins and getting Fire Emerald to level 34. During the time she was level 33 I went ahead and burned her 120 merits on level 33 Pool C draws, getting:

1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K

I was really pleased with this result; the Luck of the Gambler and Obliteration recipes made this a fantastic draw.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a "crazy" Imperious TF. This was advertised as a suicide run where the leader recruited only DPS (no "herding tankers" or "pure support" allowed), the TF was set on Invincible, and everyone was encouraged to attack everything in sight, never stopping to rest or anything. Despite (or because of) these rules of engagement, we still got a crew of fairly decent players, but the mix of ATs was of course very DPS oriented, with 3 blasters, 1 scrapper, 1 stalker (quit the TF after the second mission because it was too silly), 1 widow, 2 controllers (I think a kin and a FF, neither of which were especially supporty). Surprisingly, we didn't actually have a team wipe until the second mission. We pretty much zerged everything in sight, hospitalling and coming back whenever we died. I got to use Vengeance a lot and I did enough healing with Aid Other that I got the Doctor badge on this TF. In the final encounter, I was pretty dubious about our chances against the AVs due to our relative lack of debuffs (my Surveillance and Achilles Heel proc were the only debuffs I could see being used). But despite two wipes against Romulus, the lemming horde eventually carried the day, finishing the TF in 1hr 58mins with 156 deaths.

Blond Justice (45 bs/shield scrapper) joined a "speed" Lady Grey TF, with a team of 2 corruptors, 1 warshade, 2 scrappers, 2 blasters, 1 tanker. With strategic teleporting, this went really quickly, finishing in a speedy 48mins 43sec.

Thunder Girl (50 will/nrg tanker) did another Imperious TF, this time on Invincible with a team of 2 controllers, 1 blaster, 1 crab, 1 corruptor, 1 scrapper, 1 tanker, 1 defender. We had no problems and finished in 1hr 16mins.

Samurai-ko (33 katana/will scrapper) led a few Croatoa teams to eventually get to level 35, then did a Numina TF with a team of 2 blasters, 1 tanker, 3 controllers, 1 defender and 1 scrapper; this had no serious problems, but ran a little slow, finishing in 2hrs 41mins.

Star Amethyst (11 warshade) joined a small Positron TF with a team of 1 tanker, 1 scrapper, 1 kin controller and 1 warshade. The kin controller was working hard, but we were still a little light on support and so we died a lot, especially struggling with the Defeat Rollister mission where we had a couple team wipes. Nevertheless got through the TF in 3hrs 54mins and got Star Amethyst to level 16.

Myself and several friends started a sorta-superteam of sonic/sonic corruptors. We had 4 players all doing sonic buffs and attacks. My experience so far is that we melt all enemies due to stacking resist debuffs, and most of the time our own resists were close to the cap (even with no enhancements or training enhancements), but the corruptor resist cap isn't all that high and enough damage still leaks through to occasionally kill us. It's fun though, and I got mine to level 13.

Finally, I played Olivia Q (50 MA/SR scrapper) on a Lady Grey TF with a team of 1 stalker, 2 corruptors, 1 blaster, 1 brute, 2 scrappers and 1 controller. With capped SR defenses, Olivia feels pretty godlike when fighting PvE enemies; nothing seemed able to touch her except Hamidon and his mitos, and in the last mission, despite lacking stealth, I got to run down to the final room and team TP everyone. Finished in 1hr 3mins.

[u]Level updates[u]
Fire Emerald (30 fire/fire blaster) reached level 31.
Kyrie Eleison (21 bs/inv scrapper) reached level 29.
Dreamwind (24 storm/psy defender on Protector) reached level 27.
Millie Volt (18 elec/inv brute) reached level 23.
Morgan le Fay (5 dark/sonic corruptor) reached level 10.
Blond Justice (41 bs/shd scrapper) reached level 45.
Kashira (16 db/ninj stalker) reached level 17.
Idealist (42 fire/thermal controller) reached level 43.
TokyoRose (brand new sonic/sonic corruptor) reached level 13.

[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
2 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run) Wentw=8.4M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.92M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
2 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.412M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=471K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
2 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=52K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 367.984M infl, 1320 merits, 279K infl/merit


PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 73.1M infl, 325 merits, 225K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 159.156M infa, 320 merits, 497K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
37.22MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 62.87mins (avg of 4 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
20.47MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 93.8mins (avg of 5 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.74MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.70mins (avg of 23 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.72MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 34.36mins (avg of 5 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

2/20/2009

Tuesday night, I played Thunder Girl (50 will/nrg tanker) on a friend's 8-player team, mostly doing Unai's Portal Corp missions. We swept the Banished Pantheon dimension clean twice, killing enough masks to get Thunder Girl the Banisher badge.

After several of the level 50s logged off, we found ourselves with several sidekicks and too few mentors, so we swapped personnel around to try and make things work. I switched to Blond Justice (41 bs/shield scrapper) and we reformed into a 6-player team in the low 40s. We attempted an invincible level 43 Founders Falls safeguard, and found ourselves fighting a level 45 Dr Quatrexin AV with a tanker, 4 DPS and a TA controller. This didn't go well and Dr Quatrexin spanked us badly, even with several of us repeatedly hospitalling and running back into the fight. After about 4 deaths each, we decided to just let him go, failing the safeguard. I felt like our problem was a lack of support, so I switched to playing Mercy Beaucoup (41 emp/ice defender), which seemed to help immensely; we did a few more radio missions at the same difficulty with no problems, and even defeated an AV-level psychic Clockwork King.

Later that night I joined a Recluse Strike Force as Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor). Our team mix was:

2 SS/inv brutes
rad/therm corruptor
dark/therm corruptor
fire/kin corruptor
fire/rad corruptor (me)
fortunata
mind/psi dominator

The RSF was pretty straightforward with this team mix. In the final mission, we defeated the Freedom Phalanx on the first try, with occasional deaths, but not enough to slow us down as we battle rez'd the fallen back into the fight. Finished in 1hr 30sec and I got a Nucleolus HO.

I was at home sick on Wednesday, and played a lot of CoH. I started off soloing with Kashira (13 db/ninj stalker), then got invited to a 4-player pickup team doing door missions; it started off slow moving, but we picked up the pace after a few missions, added some players (I got the team leader to invite a couple people who were LFT on LBx), and got good exp. This got Kashira to level 16, where I took Build Up.

Played Strong Woman (9 SS/inv tanker) for a little bit, accepting a pickup invite to a 3-player Hollows team; but the leader went AFK and the other player suddenly had to log out, so I found myself soloing in the Hollows. Nevertheless got to level 10, where I took Taunt. I know some tankers don't like Taunt, but I love it on all tankers. The way I see it, it's an auto-hit AoE soft control with a very fast recharge; as good or better than most control powers.

I joined an ITF with Indigo Ifrit, with a team mix of

fire/mental blaster
grav/kin controller
fire/kin controller
bs/shield scrapper
emp defender
fire/rad corruptor (me)
shield/mace tanker
crab soldier

We had very high DPS, a tanker and decent support, and so we quickly powered through the ITF in 1hr 17mins with no problems, gaining 28 merits. I also got a level 50 Gaussian Chance for Build Up recipe drop.

I also rerolled my peacebringer (who I simply couldn't get into; got to level 4 and ran out of steam) into a new broadsword/invuln scrapper. I named her Kyrie Eleison and gave her a shining angel sort of look. Her career began rather ingloriously as she joined a sewer team that promptly got totally wiped out by the first sewer spawn. After hospitalling, the team reformed into a 3 player mission team that ran through the newbie door missions, gradually increased in size to a 6 player team, then did missions in the Hollows. We finished David Wincott's story arc for 2 merits and Flux's story arc for 7 merits, doing the Frostfire mission twice. The second Frostfire run was more difficult; our empath had logged after the first Frostfire mission and so, light on support, we got wiped out by Outcasts. Our tanker volunteered to swap to a plant/emp, which let us finish the mission with no further problems. After the second Frostfire, the team broke up and I moved over to Pocket D and did a few Valentine's Day missions, completing Ganymede's story arc for another 2 merits and beating Snaptooth to unlock costume parts. After all that, Kyrie finished at level 14.

On Thursday night, I played Samurai-ko (29 katana/will scrapper). Having gained the vampire and werewolf badges on an earlier Moonfire TF, I did a flashback of the fortune teller mission for the Spelunker badge, then picked up the explore and history badges to get the Atlas Medallion accolade. I then went on to form an 8-player pickup team in Striga Isle, where we completed Tobias Hansen's story arc for 9 merits and part of Lars Hansen's arc. This got Samurai-ko to level 30; haven't figured out what power to take at 30 yet.

After that I joined a 1st villain respec, playing Primadonna (33 sonic/kin corruptor). Our team mix was:

2 dominators
2 brutes
1 widow
2 kin corruptors

The first hunt was no problem; the second mission against the various Longbow bosses was kind of messy as the team didn't really make any effort to stay together, but we eventually assassinated all the bosses. The final mission we were stealth TP'd to the final room. The team wanted to ignore the CoT and immediately start clearing vines, but we ended up aggroing most of the CoT and having to kill them anyway. Nevertheless we finished in 28min 56sec, gaining 15 merits. I also had a level 33 Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge recipe drop for me. I immediately spent 20 merits on a Pool C recipe draw; this time I got a level 33 Numina's HEAL/RCHG, Black Market price 6.8M, a good result.

Finished the night fooling around in Recluse's Victory as Mayday (50 fortunata). I have yet to figure out how to kill fortunata in RV, so I thought maybe playing a fortunata would help me find out what they die to. At various times I attacked a blaster and a scrapper; neither of them seemed able to seriously hurt me, as I dodged nearly all their attacks and could heal back the ones that leaked through. But I couldn't seem to kill them, either, before they either phase shifted or simply ran away.


[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]

RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.92M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 219.54M infl, 880 merits, 249K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 73.1M infl, 325 merits, 225K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BMkt=6.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 138.856M infa, 260 merits, 534K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.48MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 69.89mins (avg of 2 runs)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 189.67mins (avg of 3 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.78MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 66.75mins (avg of 4 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.68mins (avg of 4 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.99MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 93.38mins (avg of 18 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.70MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 84.75mins (avg of 2 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

2/17/2009

Started Monday night playing Mayday (49 fortunata) on a Lady Grey TF organized on LBx. Our team mix was:

2 blasters (fire/?, nrg/?)
stone/? tanker
?/stone brute
2 fortunatas (including me)
dark/regen scrapper
earth/kin controller

This was a speed run with lots of stealthing. The first mission we were team TP'd to Penny, freed her, then team TP'd back to the door to fight the Clockwork King. The second mission, we were TP'd to each group of Riders to fight them. The third mission we deliberately failed; it seems one failed mission is allowed without a loss of merits. The nrg blaster disconnected after the third mission and didn't return. On the fourth mission, the fire blaster TP Foe'd mitos out of the goo, where we quickly disposed of them, and the fifth mission we were stealth/TP'd to the final encounter, which we had no problem with, even down a player. We finished the TF in a very speedy 46min 47sec for 39 merits, and the mission bonus for the last mission caused Mayday to hit level 50, my first VEAT to hit 50.

After that a friend invited me to a 6-player team running level 50 missions in Firebase Zulu, which seemed like a different and fun thing to try. I played Blond Justice (41 bs/shield scrapper) as a sidekick, hoping to make progress on unlocking the Rularuu costume items. FBZ seems less painful to get around in now that they added a jetpack vendor. As a scrapper, I took point inside the various cave missions, and I found out that Rularuu are quite nasty against shield defense, since they have tons of DEF debuffs (making me easier to hit), RCHG debuffs (slowing my attacks, and even worse, my mez protection clicky) and holds (the slows made me very vulnerable to these). They also have a very long aggro range (probably sniper level perception) and we had one team wipe in a large cave where 3 separate Rularuu spawns jumped in to get us. Nevertheless it was fun and we knocked out four or five missions, and Blond got credit for 8 Overseers.

After that team broke up, Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd a couple flashback missions. Knocked out a Vahzilok Conference flashback in 17min 2sec for 5 merits. I also tried a Breakout at the Zig flashback. The first mission was an easy glowy-click. The second required me to break into the jail and rescue 3 villains, then fight my way back to the mission entrance while under heavy fire from Longbow ambushes; this was hard but pretty fun (lost one villain NPC, but got 2 out, which counted as a win). The third mission required defeating all Longbow on a huge ship, though, which took a long tim and felt rather tedious. Finished the flashback in 41min 36sec for 8 merits.

I spent 20 of these ill-gotten merits on one Pool C recipe draw, and got a near-worthless Executioner's Contract (DMG/RCHG) (3K at Black Market). Oh well, can't always get lucky on these!


[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]

RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.92M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 219.54M infl, 880 merits, 249K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 73.1M infl, 325 merits, 225K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 132.056M infa, 240 merits, 550K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.48MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 69.89mins (avg of 2 runs)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 189.67mins (avg of 3 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.78MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 66.75mins (avg of 4 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.13MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.68mins (avg of 4 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.81MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.34mins (avg of 17 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.76MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 109mins (1 run) (took a Ribosome HO instead of merits)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

2/16/2009

On Saturday, I played Police Woman (50 AR/dev) on a 7-player LEGION team for a few level 50 missions in Peregrine Island.

I played a newbie dark/sonic corruptor for a little bit; I've never really done sonic dispersion before and I thought dark blast might be a way to get a self-heal without resorting to medicine pool (which I like, but I do it too much). I got the name Morgan le Fay and tried to give her a sorceress-like costume. I solo'd some, then joined a 6-player pickup team for 5 Valentine's Day missions in Pocket D, which got her all the Valentine badges and level 5. The hero team seemed pretty happy to have Morgan's super-low level villain missions to quickly blow through, in order to unlock DJ Zero as a contact. This also scored me 2 reward merits for Scratch's story arc.

I also started yet another newbie kheldian; I really have a tough time getting into these, yet I feel some kind of moral obligation to keep trying. This one was a warshade, and I managed to sign on with a lowbie Valentine's Day villain team. This team was a couple stalkers, a dominator, and me, a kheldian; as a result we were rather squishy and got wiped out by Red Caps a couple times. Nevertheless we managed to beat Snaptooth a few times, getting my warshade to level 4.

I played Kashira (12 dual/ninj stalker) for a bit too, soloing the Plague Carrier mission, a King's Row mayhem, then joining a 3 player pickup team which ran through the Hit List story arc, getting Kashira to level 13 and earning 4 merits.

On Sunday I joined a Lady Grey SF, playing Mayday (48 fortunata). Our team mix was:

fire/thermal corruptor
2 ?/willpower scrappers
stone/? tanker
dark/dark brute
fire/kin corruptor
fortunata (me)
?/? blaster

With the new penalties for failing TF missions, we did the full version of the first mission, clearing down to Penny and rescuing her, battling ambushes while leading her out, and fighting the Clockwork King AV. The second mission we sorta-stealthed to each Rider spawn and took it out. The third mission we had some confusion as to whether we were going to complete the mission or purposely fail it; multiple stealthers ran around the mission, some trying to achieve the mission goals and some trying to find Infernia/Glacia and get them killed. Meanwhile all the nonstealthy people decided to join in the fun by simply clearing their way into the mission. I decided I'd work towards completing the mission, trying to save the various prisoners; the Rikti drones could see through my stealth, but my high range DEF helped me dodge them anyway. After going about the mission in this chaotic way for several minutes, we eventually came to the consensus that we were closer to completing the mission than purposely failing it, so we ended up killing the AV and leading the heroes out, finishing it the "real" way.

The fourth mission was also pretty chaotic; we didn't seem to have a real gameplan, everyone just sorta superjumped/supersped around shooting/punching mitos. Somehow this worked and we beat Hamidon. The final mission I stealthed to the final room and team TP'd everyone there, except for the blaster who must've been AFK with TP prompt on. We ended up beating the two final AVs with 7 players, after which we blitzed the 4 generators and completed the TF. Total time was 1hr 33mins for 39 merits; this seems a really good merit/hr yield, especially considering we weren't playing particularly optimally. Mayday got to level 49, where I took the Resuscitate power. Single-target Confuse was also tempting, but I decided rezzing would probably be more useful for high-end villain/co-op content.

After that, I played Idolator (27 mind/fire dominator) on a 5-player LEGION team doing Sharkhead missions for a bit, then eventually joined a Sharkhead SF, with a team mix of:

sonic/rad corr
nrg/will brute
mind/fire dom (me)
grav/psi dom
mind/thorn dom
rad/rad corr
robo/pain dom

We didn't bother stealthing much, instead preferring to simply clear things out of our way; this took a little longer but it worked well and we had no problems. Finished in 1hr 30mins for 22 merits and got Idolator to level 29. I took Levitate at level 28, then burned a respec to move slots around, dropping all my slots from Flares (which is kind of a marginal attack) and moving them around so I had at least 1ACC 3DMG in every other attack.

That night I played Blond Justice (39 broadsword/shield scrapper), forming and leading a 7-player team of mostly Sisterhood & friends with some pickup people. We did a mix of Founders Falls radio missions and some missions from contacts against Nemesis and Carnies; also 2 Brickstown mayhems where we got to fight and defeat Ice Mistral AV both times (though she debuffs and is quite tough). A teammate also complimented me on Blond Justice's character concept and look, which was really nice. Blond Justice got to level 41 on this team, where she took Kick (took awhile for me to decide this; decided to work on getting Weave over opening an Epic power pool). At level 40 she also got the "Justice Incarnate" badge, which I decided was perfect for her character concept.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
25.16MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 93mins (1 run)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 189.67mins (avg of 3 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.78MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 66.75mins (avg of 4 runs)
19.70MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.81MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.34mins (avg of 17 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.76MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 109mins (1 run) (took a Ribosome HO instead of merits)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

2/13/2009

Started off playing Mayday (48 fortunata) on a Recluse SF of about half Sisterhood and half various LBx types. Our team mix was:

4 fortunata (including me)
AR/rad corruptor
robo/storm MM
mind/thorn dominator
fire/dark corruptor

We were a little unsure whether this would work without a brute, but with capped defenses and good debuffs we had no problems with any of the early missions, only running into problems in the final showdown with the Freedom Phalanx, where our first two assaults were soundly defeated without us taking down even one of the Heroes. VEATs are pretty awesome, but a resist-based brute to soak up Hero damage would've been a big help here.

We had the mind dominator try sleeping the heroes with domination, but this didn't seem to work (I think this is because our initial attack caused Numina to start buffing Clear Mind on the other heroes).

The team decided to move to Bloody Bay for a Shivan run; we sampled meteors and then worked together to knock over a pillbox. Returning to the mission, we cracked open a bunch of Shivans, made someone suicide for stacked Vengeance, then made another assault on the Heroes. This time we got Numina, Sister Psyche and Positron; the team leader called for us to run away at that point (half the team was down). After the team regrouped, we summoned another round of Shivans and made another assault, which finally cleared the rest of the Heroes. We completed the RSF in 1hr 49mins, including the run through Bloody Bay. I took the random HO reward, which seemed like a better deal than 25 merits; though I'll use the 25 merit value in my data collection. Got a Ribosome, which is one of the most valuable; I don't really use those, though, so it'll likely end up on the Black Market.

After that I played Millie Volt (15 elec/will brute) on a Cap SF. This team was very slow to get started; we had to wait about 20 minutes for a very slow loading player to switch alts then travel from Nerva to Cap. We finally got moving with a team mix of:

blood widow
elec/inv brute (me)
mind/thorn dom
fortunata
thug/traps MM
fire/therm corruptor
SS/inv brute

This SF went pretty decently well. We had a moment of confusion at the start of the third mission when some team members stealthed ahead while the rest of us started fighting near the entrance; unfortunately, it seemed all the level 20+ mentors were stealthing ahead and the level 15-16 lackeys were the ones fighting level 20-21 mobs, so this did not go well. Once we recovered from that and got our plan straight, things went better; honestly the fort and dom did most of the SF, stealthing and completing the objectives for several of the middle missions, and grabbing all the glowies in the final mission. We tried to get Bat'Zul and Infernal to fight each other, but they got distracted or something so we ended up jumping in to knock out first Bat'Zul, then Infernal. Finished the Cap SF in 1hr 3mins for 12 merits. Millie hit level 17, taking Unyielding (for status protection) at 16.

From there Millie went to Pocket D and finished the night running Valentine missions, sidekicked up to some level 43ish heroes. We completed both the hero and villain story arcs for the Beautiful badge, and one run through Snaptooth which got Millie to 18 (and Health) and unlocked the Toga costume.

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
22.40MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 189.67mins (avg of 3 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.70MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.81MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.34mins (avg of 17 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.76MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 109mins (1 run) (took a Ribosome HO instead of merits)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)
?MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in ?mins (0 runs) (4 runs pre-2/10/09 discarded as bad data)

2/12/2009

I started off playing Samurai-ko (27 katana/will scrapper) on a Moonfire TF. Our team mix was:

bs/shield scrapper
fire/nrg blaster
grav/kin controller
plant/rad controller
fire/fire blaster
katana/will scrapper (me)
dark/dark defender

A couple early deaths persuaded the level 23-24s on the team to take SKs, and we had some initial confusion over which scrapper the team would follow (I had assumed I was on point since I was the highest level, but the other scrapper kept going a different direction despite being my SK; since he had the star, I decided to follow his lead). After we worked out those issues, though, the team was very strong and we pounded our way through the TF in a speedy 1hr 13mins for 31 merits. Samurai-ko leveled up to 29 just as the TF ended, and got the Slayer and Silver Bullet badges from the many vampires and werewolves in this TF. I took Heightened Senses at 28. The shield scrapper also complimented Samurai-ko on her build and how tough she seemed; Samurai-ko is only using SOs, though, so this is really all Divine Avalanche plus natural regen/resists from her Willpower.

After that I joined a Positron TF, playing Linda Lightspeed (33 kin/rad defender). Our team mix was:

2 fire/fire blasters
stone/axe tanker
will/SS tanker
fire/kin controller
peacebringer
kin/rad defender (me)

We started Positron on Invincible difficulty; I asked if that was intentional and didn't get a response. So we went to the first mission and against the first group of level 17 Vahzilok we immediately had a total party wipe. At that point the leader said he had forgotten to change his difficulty, and we disbanded the TF and reformed it at Heroic difficulty. Even so, the tankers (who were both level 50s exemped to level 15) did not seem to understand how much weaker they were at level 15 and tried to herd several spawns of Vahzilok together, causing another team wipe during the first mission. The willpower tanker gained an appreciation of how squishy he was to toxic damage; he still wanted to herd, but at least herded smaller groups at a time. I still felt rather guilty that I could not always keep him alive against the Vahzilok (though he was fine against the clock and CoT); at level 15 it felt like my Transfusion recharged very slowly compared to how fast damage would come in. Thankfully, the blasters were very good about avoiding aggro, so I didn't have to heal them much at all (nearly impossible with Transfusion anyway).

The stone tanker seemed rather more clueless; despite acknowledging the willpower tank was lead, he would wade into other groups of mobs and get himself killed. After the fourth mission, he announced, "I need to log for a bit, back in an hour," which I thought was a pretty inconsiderate thing to do during a long TF. He never did come back, which is probably just as well. After the fifth mission the controller disconnected and never came back, leaving me as sole support toon on the team.

We were down to 5 players facing spawns set for 7, but things seemed to actually speed up a bit at that point; the remaining 5 of us were working together a bit better (though I think one fire blaster was getting exasperated at the peacebringer KBing the tanker's neat little herds) and I stealth-TP'd the team through some of the missions that could be stealthed. With SB and high DPS we were able to clear the final four Defeat All missions pretty quickly, though we did have one more team wipe in the last mission (again against Vahzilok; I really think they are the toughest enemy type in CoH). Finally completed the TF in 3hrs 3mins (not counting the first failed TF), for a yummy 64 merits; Linda got the Gravedigger and Soulbinder badges from the various Vahz and CoT.

I immediately cashed in 60 merits for random Pool C recipe draws on the 35-39 table, and got the following:

1 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.92M
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K

This is only a 177k/merit yield, but I like both Positron's Blast and Devastation, so I was still happy with this result.

Finished the night respecing Thunder Girl (50 will/nrg tanker), but I'm still missing a bunch of the IOs she needs, so her build is still kind of a mess and not worthy of posting. The major changes are that I dropped Fire Blast for Melt Armor (not sure if this is a good trade since Melt Armor is long recharge and not a huge debuff, but I figure Melt Armor can also serve as an extra AoE taunt), and Fast Healing for Weave (hate to lose Fast Healing, but I need Weave to try and raise her overall DEF). With the haphazard IOs I had lying around, Thunder Girl is now slightly below the tanker HP cap and has standing-around lethal defense in the high teens. Hoping to raise both these values as I acquire more IOs.


[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]

RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.92M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 219.54M infl, 880 merits, 249K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 73.1M infl, 325 merits, 225K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 132.053M infa, 220 merits, 600K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (1 run)
22.40MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 189.67mins (avg of 3 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.70MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.81MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.34mins (avg of 17 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
9.60MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 75mins (avg of 4 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)
?MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in ?mins (0 runs) (4 runs pre-2/10/09 discarded as bad data)

2/11/2009

The Valentine's event started on Monday and I had Blond Justice (38 broadsword/shield scrapper) run through the Ganymede story arc with the help of a stalker sidekick I had picked up in Pocket D, gaining 2 reward merits, but the stalker had to go before we could do his Scratch missions to unlock DJ Zero. So from there I went to join an Imperious TF with a team mix of:

3 blasters (fire/nrg, fire/fire, archery/mental)
3 defenders (emp/psy, dark/rad, rad/ice)
will/SS tanker
bs/shield scrapper (me)

It had been a rough work day for me and I had consumed a couple White Russians to unwind, so this TF went by in a blur. The team was quite strong, though, with a good mix of buffs/debuffs/tanking/DPS; we had no serious problems and finished the TF in 1hr 22mins, getting Blond to level 39. I also got a purple drop, a Fortunata's Hypnosis (SLEEP/ENDRDX); not the most amazing purple recipe, but not bad at all.

After that I wandered back into Pocket D and hooked up with a team repeating level 8 Snaptooth missions, purely for the mission rewards. Having unlocked various costume options, I went to the Pocket D tailor and gave Blond Justice a toga & sandals costume. I also used her extra level 39 slots to 6-slot Red Fortune into her Deflection toggle, giving her an extra +2% dmg, +5% rchg and +2.5% rng DEF in IO bonuses.

I also did some Snaptooth missions on Triumph server as Alice Slaughter (31 db/will brute on Triumph), helping a friend to farm red caps. We did the mission 6 times with a mid-sized team to get the red cap badge, which is hard to get on the villain side; this also got Alice all the Valentine rewards and also unlocked the red cap daggers for her (not sure if I will use them or not, but they look neat).

Finished Monday night playing Millie Volt (15 elec/will brute on Liberty) trying to solo the Defeat Terrigol mission. This didn't go very well; I was on Vicious difficulty and died twice versus a red-con CoT ghost lieutenant who hit hard and debuffed hard. After hospitaling again, I went to one of the Pocket D bartenders and bought a full load of purple and yellow inspirations which let me finally kill the ghost and finish the rest of the mission.

Sometime on Monday night (maybe it was midnight? not sure) all my alts started getting the Tried & True badge (51 month veteran).

On Tuesday night, I started off playing Kashira (9 db/ninj stalker) as a lackey on a 5-player LEGION team doing level 20 missions for Seer Marino. Our team was 2 stalkers, 2 dominators and 1 VEAT, and so we were very squishy and had no healing or support to speak of. So we had a lot of stray deaths and even one wipeout against a tough group of Arachnos. And on top of that, one of the team members kept calling my character "Shakira", and seemed to expect me to go into some kind of Latin dance number. Nevertheless, Kashira got to level 11 before the team broke up, then solo'd the rest of the way to level 12. I took Combat Jumping at 10 and Swift at 12 and upgraded all her enhancements to DOs.

After that I joined a 7-player Demolition Girls SG team on Protector for a few missions; that Protector team seemed light on support so I dusted off Dreamwind (a 22 storm/psy defender on Protector that I hadn't played in many months) to try and help out. We did some of the later Faultline story arc missions, fighting Nocturne, Arbiter Sands and Captain Castillo AVs; despite my best efforts I couldn't seem to reliably keep our shield tanker alive with my O2 boosts and had to frequently rely on hurricane to debuff (which I hope helped the team more than it annoyed them; at one point it let me briefly tank an AV long enough for a scrapper to come help). I also tried using O2 Boost to counter the blindness from smoke grenades, since +Perception was added to O2 Boost a few updates ago; it seemed to take two O2 Boosts to unblind someone, which is a little disappointing, because applying two O2 Boosts to each player seems like more trouble than it's worth to counter a smoke grenade. After finishing in Faultline the team ran through Ganymede's story arc, gaining me 2 merits.

I logged on Thunder Girl (50 will/SS tanker on Liberty) and poked around Wentworth's for a little bit placing some bids. I had seen a willpower tanker build with softcapped defense posted on the tanker forums, which sounds really powerful, so I'm starting to think about a respec for Thunder Girl (who has capped max HPs but still feels squishy against big alpha strikes), but I need to pick up a lot of recipes before I can come close to matching that build.

Finished the night soloing a little with Strong Woman (8 invuln/SS tanker on Liberty), getting her to level 9 and the Negotiator badge.



[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u] (recalculated for 2/10/2009 patch)
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TRIAL REWARDS[u]
22.40MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.90MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 193mins (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
19.70MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.81MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.34mins (avg of 17 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
9.60MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 75mins (avg of 4 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
8.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR STORY ARC REWARDS[u]
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)
?MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in ?mins (0 runs) (4 runs pre-2/10/09 discarded as bad data)

I refigured all my merits per hour calculations, using the new merit rewards in today's patch. Here's what I came up with:

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u] (recalculated for 2/10/2009 patch)
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.46MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
25.52MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 134mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TRIAL REWARDS[u]
22.40MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.25MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.90MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 193mins (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
19.70MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
19.66MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 58mins (avg of 2 runs)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.31MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.66MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 95.11mins (avg of 16 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.79MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
9.60MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 75mins (avg of 4 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
8.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR STORY ARC REWARDS[u]
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)
?MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in ?mins (0 runs) (4 runs pre-2/10/09 discarded as bad data)


PW's commentary:

The Kheldian story arc got nerfed hard. But we knew that had to happen.

Villain respecs weren't changed, and thus remain one of the best time investments for merit reward. Of course, the difficulty of recruiting 4 villains to work together keeps this from being abused much. I have Ice Mistral SF as being good MPH also, but this might not be accurate, since I only have data from 1 run which was on an exceptional team.

Lots of buffs to TF rewards, increasing the value of most of them. Manticore and Synapse TFs particularly stand out as being good merits per time.

They increased the merit reward for the Vahzilok Conference story arc, which is going to make it my new favorite villain flashback to solo when nothing much is going on.

I threw out all my previous data on Lady Grey TF because many of them depended on deliberately failing missions, which in the current patch will no longer give you full merits. They simultaneously raised the merit reward for the LGTF, though, so even with the change to how failed missions are handled, I still think LGTF may be a good way to get reward merits.

2/9/2009

On Friday night I joined a Rikti War Zone raid as it was just forming, playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster). Including the recruiting time, pylon clearing time, and fighting on the mother ship itself, I was there for 51 minutes. I used Surveillance to determine that pylons have 20% RES to all but psi. It was a very successful raid, and I got badge credit for a bomb, 2 reward merits for the GM, and an impressive 599 Vanguard merits.

After that I switched to Rain Dancer (50 storm/archery defender) and joined an 8-player LEGION SG team hunting Praetorian AVs; we did this for a couple hours, defeating Malaise, Shadowhunter three times, Mother Mayhem, Diabolique, Chimera twice, and Black Swan. Rain Dancer's badge meter said she was on 11 of 13 Praetorians both before and after this run; I have no idea which two she's missing. Along the way I did pick up 5.9 million inlfuence and a level 50 Performance Shifter: Chance for END recipe (which I immediately crafted and slotted). A random passerby also complimented Rain Dancer on her biographical story, which was nice.

Friday night, I solo'd a bit with Millie Volt (13 elec/inv brute), knocking out Krylov's "After the Wall Fell" arc for 5 merits and a King's Row mayhem; on Saturday I played Millie a little more, joining a 3 player LEGION team which eventually got her to level 15. I took Fly as Millie's level 14 power; she probably could've gotten by on the jetpack a bit longer, but I just picture her as innately being a flyer.

I also started a newbie inv/SS tanker on Friday night; the recent buffs have rekindled my interest in invulnerability. I got the name Strong Woman and gave her a primary-color, Silver Age heroine sort of costume. I quickly got invited to a 4 player team of level 2-3s who didn't speak very good English, but were decent players. We ran a few door missions which got Strong Woman to level 6. Later in the weekend Strong Woman joined a 4-player Hollows team that got her to level 8.

On Saturday and Sunday, I played Idolator (24 mind/fire dominator) on mid-sized LEGION teams running mid 20s door missions in Sharkhead. We did have one wipeout in a Tsoo mission where we were fighting one group of Tsoo and a patrol surprised us from behind; but once we got back from hospital we mopped them all up with no problems. This all got Idolator to level 27; I took Terrify at level 26, which is a nice AoE control and kinda works well with Fire Breath as they are both cone attacks. We also completed Darrin Wade's story arc during this time, getting the Thief of Midnight badge and 5 reward merits.

Later on Saturday, I joined an Imperious TF with Blond Justice (35 broadsword/shield scrapper). I was a little shy about joining as a mere level 35, but no one seemed to mind. Our team mix was:

night widow
spine/SR scrapper
bs/shield scrapper (me)
arch/nrg blaster
ill/FF controller
elec/stone brute
fire/therm controller
mind/kin controller

We ran the ITF on Rugged, but with force fields, thermal shields and speed boost, we had no trouble whatsoever with the TF, completing it in 1hr 33mins for 25 merits. Blond Justice leveled up to 37 and got a purple Unbreakable Constraint (RCHG/ACC) drop, which was really nice. Justice is traditionally a Roman goddess, so I immediately went to a tailor and made her a Roman armor costume; I didn't like the overly ornate look of the Roman swords or shields, though, so I kept the plainer straight longsword and heater shield.

On Sunday I logged on and a friend immediately told me about a Lady Grey TF he had joined that still had room, so I signed up for that. I played Mayday (47 fortunata), and our team mix was:

fire/kin controller
stone/SS tanker
fire/nrg blaster
TA/arch defender
fortunata (me)
dark/kin corr
kin/dark defender
warshade

We were running on Invincible, so I decided I definitely needed an SK, which I got. The 45 warshade didn't ask for one, which I didn't think much of, but I decided to keep quiet to avoid drama; eventually he SK'd up after we had a team wipe. We had a surprisingly high number of deaths for some reason, especially from our controller, who would pretty reliably let me Vengeance every time my power recharged. As a villain I had no idea what support ATs we had except for our corruptor and the TA defender whose arrows were pretty visible; I eventually deduced that all our hero support were kins. Speed boost was nice, but I'm not sure having 3 kins did us much good over having one. I also got to use Aura of Confusion a lot (due to the extra aggro our team seemed to be drawing), which helped improve my opinion of that power quite a bit.

In our first mission we cleared to Penelope Yin then purposely got her killed, though we were a little clumsy about it, suffering a team wipe ourselves before we could actually get the NPC to die. We went on to the second mission where we sort-of stealthed it, and by sort of I mean stealthy people snuck ahead and nonstealthy people tried to emulate this by sneaking past the Rikti, but instead dying to aggro. We muddled through this mission, then started the third mission with clearer directions for the non-stealthers to not run in and get killed. Unfortunately the stealthers had a lot of trouble locating the two prisoners, and so the non-stealthers eventually got impatient and started clearing out Rikti, until we ultimately found Infernia and Glacia and again deliberately got them killed.

The fourth mission against Hamidon was kind of a mess; we didn't seem to have a real plan, but instead we all just sorta did our own thing (some herding Rikti, some fighting Rikti, some shooting mitos, etc) and hoped for the best. I decided I would assist-target off the blaster and shot whatever he shot, and I think a few more team members decided to do this too, so the blaster ended up taking point on target selection, which let us focus fire enough to knock out all the mitos and win this encounter.

After that the fifth mission was relatively straightforward; someone did manage to stealth to the final encounter and teleport the team over, then we knocked out the two AVs with no trouble and the blaster and I blitzed the generators while hopped up on +DEF from mind link and inspirations. Finished the LGTF in 1hr 42mins for 30 merits, and Mayday hit level 48. This gave me enough slots to 6-slot her Mind Link with Red Fortune IOs, which dropped Mind Link's recharge to 3mins 4sec (with 1min 30sec uptime) along with set IO bonuses of +2% dmg, +5% rchg and +2.5% rng DEF.

After that, I almost joined a Moonfire TF, but while it was still organizing, a friend of mine began organizing a Numina TF. I could use both TFs but would rather run with friends, so I apologetically dropped from Moonfire to jump to the Numina TF. I played Blond Justice (37 bs/shield scrapper) and this was a Sisterhood & friends team with a team mix of:

2 AR/dev blasters
2 peacebringers
rad/dark defender
grav/kin controller
bs/shield scrapper (me)
ill/rad controller

As solo meleer (unless you count PBs), I took point and aggressively charged into various spawns of enemies. This probably resulted in one wipeout we had due to overaggroing several spawns of Nemesis, and it also swiftly taught me how hideously nasty DE quartz emanators are for defense based characters; they seemed to completely cancel Blond's shield defenses, resulting in at least three deaths for me. Despite occasionally having to rez me, the team was doing fine, and we got through the TF in 1hr 57mins for 27 merits. Blond hit level 38 on this TF, as well as getting the Task Force Commander accolade (+HPs). I agonized over what power to take at level 38; I wasn't excited about One With the Shield, and I originally wanted to take Kick (as a prereq for Tough and Weave) but the bonus you get from Weave (+3.75% DEF) seems so small for a 3 power investment. I ended up taking Maneuvers (+2.27% DEF), which is a smaller bonus and a little more END, but is instant gratification. I'm still not sure if this was the right call.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
48.33MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 28 merits in 34.76mins (1 run)
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.45MPH Sharkhead SF: 25 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
24.76MPH Lady Grey TF: 30 merits in 72.69mins (avg of 4 runs)
21.74MPH 3rd hero respec: 25 merits in 69mins (1 run)
20.67MPH Manticore TF: 25 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.16MPH Synapse TF: 45 merits in 133.93mins (avg of 2 runs)
18.10MPH 2nd hero respec: 25 merits in 82.87mins (1 run)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.12MPH Positron TF: 55 merits in 192.76mins (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
16.20MPH Sister Psyche TF: 40 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.84MPH Silver Mantis SF: 35 merits in 132.58mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.77MPH Imperious TF: 25 merits in 95.11mins (avg of 16 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
15.76MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.53MPH Hess TF: 15 merits in 57.95mins (avg of 2 runs)
14.30MPH Citadel TF: 30 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
13.73MPH Numina TF: 27 merits in 118mins (avg of 2 runs)
11.51MPH Katie TF: 7 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
10.71MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 5 merits in 28mins (1 run)
8.56MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 2 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
7.99MPH Cap au Diable SF: 10 merits in 75.09mins (avg of 4 runs)
7.96MPH Hit List villain flashback: 2 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
7.23MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 5 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
6.27MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 7 merits in 67mins (1 run)
5.81MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 3 merits in 31mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1 merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
4.39MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 1 merit in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

2/6/2009

Tuesday night, I played Kashira (7 db/ninj stalker) for a bit, joining a 5-player pickup team doing level 8-9 paper missions in Port Oakes. We did a fairly messy Atlas mayhem where we came close to a team wipe, but I ended up stealthing to the vault door and team TPing everyone there, which gave us a chance to regroup and win the mission. Got to level 9 on this team.

Played Swordswoman (19 broadsword/fire scrapper on Protector) with an 8-player Demolition Girls team running missions in Faultline. We had one wipe against Arachnos in the "Defeat Nocturne" mission due to smoke grenades blinding us, causing us to stumble into and aggro a couple extra groups of mobs; then beat an AV-level Nocturne, saved Penelope Yin's dad for the Rescuer badge and completing her arc for 3 merits. We went on to have a wipe against Sky Raiders due to overaggroing, beat an Arbiter Sands AV and completed Doc Delilah's arc for another 2 merits. I got the Ouroboros portal power from this story arc, and can activate it to summon a portal, but can't actually enter it due to being below the min level of 25. Did get to level 22 though, taking Stamina at 20 and Kick at 22.

Wednesday night, Police Woman checked Wentworths and I found she had sold a level 50 Obliteration (ACC/RCHG) IO for 18M infl, which seemed a nice windfall. I was rather antisocial that night and just did some soloing, with Kashira finishing Dr. Creed's story arc back in Mercy for 2 merits, and Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) soloing another Loa Bone flashback (1 merit in 3m 10s) and another Vendetti flashback (1 merit in 3m 6s).

Thursday night, I ended up organizing a level 47 Imperious TF from mostly Sisterhood & friends. I played Mayday (45 fortunata) and our team mix ended up being:

3 fortunata (including me)
earth/sonic controller
necro/dark MM
AR/dev blaster
peacebringer
ice/DB tanker

Our level range was 44-47 with two even lower level people sidekicked up to 45-46. I had to turn away two level 50 people who wanted to join and exemp down; I wanted the ITF to spawn level 47 baddies and was fearful that adding a level 50, even exemped, would mess this plan up (one linkdeath by an exemper or an exempee could do this). I was a little worried that we might be healing-light, but we had capped defense from the VEATs and high resists from the sonic buffs, so I thought we'd be okay. Turns out that in addition to the dark heals and my own Aid Other, the peacebringer had her heal power and the blaster had Aid Other too, so we were just fine.

With such high defense and high resists we had an easy time with the first two missions. Since all 8 of us were getting exp, we took our time and probably cleared more than was strictly necessary. At the end of the third mission one of the fortunata proposed that instead of pulling Requiem and Romulus down to the computer console, we instead team TP to them. This seemed pretty crazy, but it actually was a lot of fun! It would've been suicide on some ITF teams I've had, but we had so much buffs that we were able to slug it out, beating up both AVs and their massive entourages. Jumping down to finish off the computer console was almost anticlimactic.

In the final mission we cleared our way to the final encounter, then went straight up the middle to engage Romulus and his Nictus friends. We got off to a bad start when our tanker got dropped by a lucky shot and Romulus started to run away from us, losing line of sight from the Nictus AVs and aggroing some nearby 5th Column that we hadn't bothered to clear, but we were able to get the tanker back into the fight and drag Romulus back to the center and finish him off 4 times for the win. Finished in 1hr 43mins for 25 merits. This run confirmed that ITF spawns baddies at the level of the highest character on the team, and also confirmed that level 47s still drop purple recipes, as I got an Armageddon (DMG/END) recipe from one. Mayday also leveled up to 47, where I took Aura of Confusion; so far I don't like this power at all, because I thought it would be a non-aggroing ranged AoE just like Mass Confusion, but actually it's a PBAoE centered on the caster, which feels much harder to use.

Finished the night playing Mayday on a friend's 3-player villain team doing missions in Grandville and Nerva, and completed the Kurrekt Diplomacy story arc for 2 more merits.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
48.33MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 28 merits in 34.76mins (1 run)
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
28.61MPH Lady Grey TF: 30 merits in 62.92mins (avg of 3 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.45MPH Sharkhead SF: 25 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
21.74MPH 3rd hero respec: 25 merits in 69mins (1 run)
20.67MPH Manticore TF: 25 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.16MPH Synapse TF: 45 merits in 133.93mins (avg of 2 runs)
18.10MPH 2nd hero respec: 25 merits in 82.87mins (1 run)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.12MPH Positron TF: 55 merits in 192.76mins (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
16.20MPH Sister Psyche TF: 40 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.84MPH Silver Mantis SF: 35 merits in 132.58mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.76MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.75MPH Imperious TF: 25 merits in 95.25mins (avg of 15 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
15.53MPH Hess TF: 15 merits in 57.95mins (avg of 2 runs)
14.30MPH Citadel TF: 30 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
13.61MPH Numina TF: 27 merits in 119.03mins (1 run)
11.51MPH Katie TF: 7 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
10.71MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 5 merits in 28mins (1 run)
8.56MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 2 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
7.99MPH Cap au Diable SF: 10 merits in 75.09mins (avg of 4 runs)
7.96MPH Hit List villain flashback: 2 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
7.23MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 5 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
6.27MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 7 merits in 67mins (1 run)
5.81MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 3 merits in 31mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1 merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
4.39MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 1 merit in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
2.91MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 41.24mins (avg of 4 runs)

2/4/2009

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
New format: I changed my merit benchmarking format to include the actual merit reward and the average completion time. This is so I can more easily fix my numbers if/when the merit award changes on test get pushed to live. As a side effect, knowing how long a typical Xxx TF takes is kind of helpful for time management.

48.33MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 28 merits in 34.76mins (1 run)
40.91MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 22mins (1 run)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
28.61MPH Lady Grey TF: 30 merits in 62.92mins (avg of 3 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.45MPH Sharkhead SF: 25 merits in 58.94mins (avg of 3 runs)
21.74MPH 3rd hero respec: 25 merits in 69mins (1 run)
20.67MPH Manticore TF: 25 merits in 72.57mins (avg of 3 runs)
20.16MPH Synapse TF: 45 merits in 133.93mins (avg of 2 runs)
18.10MPH 2nd hero respec: 25 merits in 82.87mins (1 run)
17.60MPH Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.41mins (avg of 6 runs)
17.34MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.46mins (avg of 4 runs)
17.12MPH Positron TF: 55 merits in 192.76mins (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
16.20MPH Sister Psyche TF: 40 merits in 148.15mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.84MPH Imperious TF: 25 merits in 94.70mins (avg of 14 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
15.84MPH Silver Mantis SF: 35 merits in 132.58mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.76MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.23mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.53MPH Hess TF: 15 merits in 57.95mins (avg of 2 runs)
14.30MPH Citadel TF: 30 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
13.61MPH Numina TF: 27 merits in 119.03mins (1 run)
11.51MPH Katie TF: 7 merits in 36.50mins (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
10.71MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 5 merits in 28mins (1 run)
8.56MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 2 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
7.99MPH Cap au Diable SF: 10 merits in 75.09mins (avg of 4 runs)
7.96MPH Hit List villain flashback: 2 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
7.23MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 5 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
6.27MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 7 merits in 67mins (1 run)
5.81MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 3 merits in 31mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1 merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
4.39MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 1 merit in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
2.91MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 41.24mins (avg of 4 runs)

PW's recommendations:
I'm sure these will change when the merit rewards are adjusted, but for now, I like
Level 50 hero: Lady Grey TF, 3rd hero respec
Level 50 villain: 3rd villain respec, Lady Grey SF
Level 33 hero: Manticore TF, Synapse TF, 1st hero respec
Level 33 villain: 1st villain respec, Sharkhead SF, Vendetti/Loa Bone/Vahzilok Conference flashbacks

I like level 50 for the infl/infa and chance at purple recipes.
I like level 33 because I prefer to get level 33 IO set recipes.

2/3/2009

Started off running Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) through a couple brief flashbacks to pick up some quick merits; a Loa Bone flashback in 4m 11s for 1 merit (14.34 MPH) and a Hurt the Vendetti Traitor flashback in 4m 5s for 1 merit (14.69 MPH). I also got a level 33 Scirocco's Dervish (ACC/RCHG) recipe drop for completing the latter mission.

I then joined a Katie TF as Blond Justice (34 broadsword/shield scrapper). Our team had 3 scrappers, 1 blaster, 2 defenders and 2 controllers, and we had no problems with the KTF until the last mission when we realized none of us could fly. I ended up using a jet pack to fly over and rescue Katie, then flying her back. On the way back I flew Katie a little too close to one of the Red Cap ambushes at the mission door, so had to kill a few of those. We finished the TF in 24m 15s and got 7 merits (17.32 MPH). Blond Justice hit level 35, where I took Shield Charge, which is a lot of fun.

After that I briefly played Jaguar Goddess (18 claw/will stalker; for some reason I've really been getting into stalkers lately), soloed the "Hit List" story arc for 2 merits, and got invited to a 7-player pickup team doing Operative Wellman's very cool mission to break villains out of the Zig. We mercilessly slaughtered tons of Longbow while there and broke all the NPC villains out of their cells, but we didn't keep a tight leash on the NPCs and they all managed to suicide into Longbow ambushes, causing the mission to fail. Jaguar Goddess did get to level 19 though.

Spent some time soloing Millie Volt (12 elec/will brute), completing a King's Row mayhem and the Vahzilok Conference story arc for 4 merits and getting to level 13.

Finished the night using a free respec for Blond Justice. Since getting Headsplitter, Blond really had too many attacks (between Hack, Slash, Parry, Disembowel, Headsplitter and Whirling Sword). So in the respec I dropped Slash for Phalanx Fighting for some extra DEF. Her build is now:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Blond Justice I13: Level 43 Mutation Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Broad Sword
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Hack -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Deflection -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(7), DefBuff(13)
Level 2: Battle Agility -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(15), DefBuff(15)
Level 4: True Grit -- Heal(A), Heal(17), Heal(17), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(25)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 8: Parry -- Acc(A), DefBuff-I(9), DefBuff-I(9), Dmg(11), Dmg(11), Dmg(13)
Level 10: Active Defense -- EndRdx(A)
Level 12: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(31)
Level 16: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 18: Whirling Sword -- Dmg-I(A), EndRdx(19), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(19), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(21), Dmg(21), Oblit-%Dam(23)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(23), EndMod(25)
Level 22: Against All Odds -- EndRdx(A)
Level 24: Build Up -- RechRdx(A)
Level 26: Disembowel -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(27), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dmg(31)
Level 28: Phalanx Fighting -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(31), DefBuff(34)
Level 30: Grant Cover -- EndRdx(A)
Level 32: Head Splitter -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Dmg(33), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Acc(A)
Level 38: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Tough -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Weave -- Empty(A)
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

There's a lot of vanilla SOs in the above build, but that's what I actually have slotted; the build should improve as I get more IOs.

I 3-slotted Phalanx Fighting for defense, but maybe this was a mistake as the +3.75% base defense is unenhanceable; should still help when near teammates, I guess. I also splurged to get the level 30 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% DEF) recipe, buying it from the merit vendor with Police Woman's merits. This recipe was selling on Wentworth's for 39.6M influence, so buying it for 125 merits gives a yield of 316.8K infl/merit, which felt worth it because it beats my current random recipe average.

After the respec, Blond Justice's standing-around range DEF is up to 33.5% and melee DEF at 26.64%. Still not soft-capped defense, but getting better.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 33.16 MPH (avg of 4 runs)
Lady Grey TF: 28.61 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Manticore TF: 20.67 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 17.73 MPH (avg of 6 runs)
Loa Bone villain flashback: 17.57 MPH (avg of 4 runs)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Imperious TF: 15.84 MPH (avg of 14 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
Silver Mantis SF: 15.84 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 15.76 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Citadel TF: 14.30 MPH (avg of 9 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Katie TF: 12.09 MPH (avg of 4 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Origin of Power villain flashback: 8.56 MPH (1 run)
Cap au Diable SF: 7.99 MPH (avg of 4 runs)
Hit List villain flashback: 7.96 MPH (1 run)
Spy Hunt villain flashback: 7.23 MPH (1 run)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals villain flashback: 4.68 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.91 MPH (avg of 4 runs)


[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]

RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
2 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=6.77M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.7M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 206.955M infl, 820 merits, 252K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 73.1M infl, 325 merits, 225K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 132.053M infa, 220 merits, 600K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

2/2/2009

Friday night, I briefly played Schadenfreude (37 AR/pain corruptor) as a lackey on an 8-player Fallen LEGION doing level 50 missions, in which we fought a Lord Recluse AV, which got Schadenfreude to level 38. I took Painbringer (the final pain power) but haven't gotten to use it yet.

After that I played Samurai-ko (27 katana/willpower scrapper), duoing through Doc Delilah's story arc in Faultline for 2 merits, then doing a few Striga missions.

Millie Volt (a fairly new 8 elec/invuln brute) solo'd through Mr. Bocor's story arc for 3 merits to get to level 9, then joined an 8-player team for a few missions that got her to level 11. Later Millie solo'd the Plague Carrier badge mission and the Hit List story arc for another 2 merits, getting to level 13. I took Temp Invuln at level 10 and Hover at level 12.

Played Blond Justice (33 bs/shield scrapper) on a Croatoa team that killed Jack-in-Irons for the Giant Killer badge and 2 merits, then did the Katie TF (with tanker, 2 blasters, 2 controllers, 2 scrappers, 1 defender) in 28mins 51sec for 7 more merits (14.56 MPH), which got Blond to level 34.

On Saturday I played Fire Emerald (30 fire/fire blaster) on a small Croatoa team which went through Kelly Nemmers' story arc (for 4 merits) and then recruited help to kill Eochai and Jack-in-Irons (another 4 merits).

Idolator (21 mind/fire dominator) joined a Silver Mantis SF with a team mix of:

blood widow
mace/shield brute
thug/traps MM
mind/fire dom (me)
SS/SR brute
fire/fire dom
DB/stone brute

The fire dom seemed to die a lot from fire cages aggro, but I felt like I was doing a bit better, confusing sorcerers, FF generators, and even those nasty toxic turrets on the Sky Raider helicarrier. The leader seemed very knowledgeable. In the final mission we methodically wiped out Sky Raiders and gun emplacements as we worked our way up the helicarrier. We did nearly have a wipeout when the Duray AV spawned on us, but we ended up pulling him down to the waters below, where we managed to finish him off. Finished the SF in 2hrs 28mins for 35 merits (14.19 MPH) and got Idolator to level 24 (taking Telekinesis at 22 and Hasten at 24).

I respec'd Mega (50 SS/elec brute), dropping Handclap (a power which is nearly always bad when I use it) and picking up Resuscitate (a power I probably won't use much, but at least is helpful) and moving a lot of slots around to try and take more benefit from IO recipe sets (mostly purple recipes I don't have yet, but kinda planning for the future). I didn't export an actual build, but I think I have a little more recharge and a little less max health, and a lot of slots with SOs in them until I get the right recipes. I got to try out Mega's new build on a level 50 villain respec, where it seemed to perform very well. Our team was:

bane spider
dark/dark corr
MA/ninj stalker
SS/elec brute
thug/poison MM

We had no problem with the Malta mission. A couple people could stealth the last mission but none could teleport, so I found myself chomping a couple purples and just running, unstealthed, through the mission to the vine room, relying on Mega's brutishness to survive. Once there I team TP'd our other unstealthy player over. Finished the respec in 36mins 57sec for 15 merits (24.36 MPH).

I also organized a late-night Imperious TF, playing Mayday (44 fortunata) with a team mix of:

fortunata (me)
bane
AR blaster
plant/thermal controller
shield/fire tanker
katana/will scrapper
ill/storm controller
stone/nrg tanker

Our average level was a little low (we had a couple 47s and several SKs including me) and our plant/thermal had to log off after the second mission, which slowed us down a little bit, but we managed to get through it. In the final mission we had one tanker on Romulus and one tanker pull the Nictus healer away and killed Romulus in that manner; with our thermal gone we were a bit worried about healing and debuffs, but the bane and stormy did well on debuffs and our +DEF was very high from the two VEATs. I also spot-healed as much as I could with Aid Other, occasionally having to jump between the two tankers to keep them both going. We had a few deaths but were able to beat the final encounter, finishing in 2hrs 7mins for 25 merits (11.81 MPH) and getting Mayday to level 45.

I restarted Kashira, my 10 DB/SR brute who had been sitting idle for awhile, as a DB/ninj stalker, hoping to see if I'd find that more fun. So far it does seem fun. The dual blade combos for a stalker are different than for scrappers or brutes, which is something I hadn't realized, so affects power choices; I ended up taking all three of the early dual blades attacks, partly for a good attack chain and partly for future combos. Got the new Kashira to level 6, picking up 2 merits doing Matthew Burke's story arc.

On Sunday I ran Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) through a flashback of Krylov's Spy Hunt story arc, which was about six assassination missions and one defeat all, heavily featuring Spetznaz. Finished this in 41mins 30sec for 5 merits (7.23 MPH).

I also heard a villain complaining on LBx channel that PvP was dead and Recluse's Victory was empty, so I brought Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) into RV to look for them. I ran around RV for a bit killing pillboxes without finding them and surmised they must've left; but a controller who was also killing pillboxes (he had figured farming pillboxes during the Super Bowl was likely to be safe) invited me to team up and work on the pillbox badge. I joined up, figuring, what the heck, I need the 1000 pillbox badge. But I also broadcast on LBx inviting people to join us in farming pillboxes, which I felt would be a sure-fire way to lure some villains into RV to play with us. To my surprise several heroes joined up and we soon had a 7 player team farming pillboxes. I learned a pillbox farming trick, where if your faction has 5 pillboxes controlled, you and a teammate can simultaneously click the two remaining pillboxes in order to score both for badges (normally 6 pillboxes "wins the game" and then the last pillbox won't count). Also, the original villain, a kin corruptor, got wind of our doings in RV and came back into the zone to fight us, and was completely undaunted by the 1-to-7 odds and the fact that we repeatedly killed him. Eventually a brute and a MM drifted in to help him, and we had some fun PvP; I felt a little guilty that the heroes outnumbered them so badly, but everyone seemed to be having fun. We even did some friendly superhero chatter over broadcast (I uttered a few "You won't get away with this!" and "Crime doesn't pay!" lines, and the villains had similar dialogue, "Villainy is victorious!" and "Argh, foiled again!" and the like). I think the corruptor actually enjoyed snaking an occasional kill before getting massively dogpiled. I probably scored 15 or so pillboxes while I was there; only like 0.3 PvP rep, though, sadly, despite getting several kills (most didn't count for rep since they were the same person).

From there I went to join a RWZ raid with Police Woman. I joined near the tail end of the pylon phase, quickly scored a bomb on the mothership, and got 2 reward merits for the master at arms. The raid itself was very light on healing or support types and so was very deadly for us squishy types, requiring several runs back from the hospital. Nevertheless I scored another 256 Vanguard merits (though I don't really have a use for them on Police Woman, other than stocking up for future Vanguard heavies) in the ~35 minutes I was there before the raid ended.

Messed around on Justice server on another lowbie elec/invuln brute with Demolition Girls SG for a bit, then returned to Liberty, originally hoping to join a Faathim TF, but that got canceled and I ended up accepting an invite to another Imperious TF. The leader asked for a tanker, and I decided to dust off Kartikeya (50 inv/fire tanker) who I haven't played seriously in a couple years. Our team mix was:

inv/SS tanker
psy/MM blaster
AR/dev blaster
emp/rad defender
katana/regen scrapper
spine/dark scrapper
rad/ice defender
inv/fire tanker (me)

I was a bit puzzled at being asked to play tanker when we already had one, but figured two tankers was good for split-tanking the final encounter on the last ITF I was on, so maybe that was the idea. I warned the team I was a bit rusty, but I ended up being lead tanker anyway; Tough and IO sets seemed to make me a bit more durable. With 90% lethal resist and moderate defense, I was indeed invulnerable to most of the Romans; though I only had 36% negative resist, so had to watch myself against the Nictus things. We had no serious issues the first three missions, except that the rad defender suddenly quit the team after mission 2 in order to go help a friend with soemthing. Mission 3 I tried to pull the generals from the valley of lag down to the bridge to avoid lag issues, as I've seen other people do; this worked fine for one of the generals, but the second general I tried this with, we killed the general but didn't seem to get credit for it in the mission objectives. I pulled various other stuff around where he was, figuring some escort of his needed to die too, but to no avail; we ended up clearing our way up instead until we got the other two generals. The Phalanx computer was a bit of a mess; I tried taunting the various robots as they animated, and we even killed a bunch of them (they actually seem pretty wimpy, there's just a lot of them) but the squishies still caught a lot of fire from them somehow before we finished off the computer console, maybe due to AoE damage.

In the final mission we skipped ahead to the final encounter because people were getting tired. With the rad defender gone we really had no debuff to speak of; we decided to try split tanking, with me on the healer nictus and the other tanker on Romulus. I found it quite hard to separate the healer nictus from Romulus, since my main aggro tools were all AoE; managed to split the healer nictus off eventually through a combination of single target melee and running around trying to shake them apart. Unfortunately the other tanker got clobbered after awhile (I think due to Unstoppable wearing out), freeing up Romulus and causing a team wipe. After that we tried the snipe-the-healer technique, but we weren't really coordinated enough to pull this off; non-blasters kept creeping up trying to attack with spines or veteran powers and causing the Nictus to heal, and ultimately aggroing the AVs onto us for another team wipe. We tried the split tanking technique twice more, once more with the other tanker on Romulus, then once with me on Romulus, all to no avail. Ultimately it just did not seem like we could put a dent in Romulus's health in the couple minutes that we could stand up to the incoming DPS. I think our problem was not enough debuffs. After several attempts we finally gave up and called it a night.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 33.16 MPH (avg of 4 runs)
Lady Grey TF: 28.61 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Manticore TF: 20.67 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Loa Bone villain flashback: 18.65 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 18.34 MPH (avg of 5 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Imperious TF: 15.84 MPH (avg of 14 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
Silver Mantis SF: 15.84 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 15.76 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Citadel TF: 14.30 MPH (avg of 9 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Origin of Power villain flashback: 8.56 MPH (1 run)
Katie TF: 10.35 MPH (avg of 3 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Cap au Diable SF: 7.99 MPH (avg of 4 runs)
Hit List villain flashback: 7.96 MPH (1 run)
Spy Hunt villain flashback: 7.23 MPH (1 run)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals villain flashback: 4.68 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.91 MPH (avg of 4 runs)

1/30/2009

Last night I was playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) when word came over LBx channel that heroes needed help in Recluse's Victory. So an ill/emp friend and I decided to go to RV and help out. We found the heroes bottled up inside the hero base with a humongous villain force just outside. My friend and I broke our team up and joined the pre-existing hero team (mostly melee/DPS types) and we got to work; I tried to call targets to help focus fire (and I absolutely love Surveillance for this, which paints a huge bullseye on my target along with a hefty debuff) and my empath friend was doing wonderful buffs and heals. We broke the villain siege on the hero base and pushing them back to the City Hall, where we engaged in frenetic dogfighting. I felt pretty good using the now-more-speedy Full Auto to cut down hordes of mastermind pets. I wasn't able to count how many kills I got or times I got killed, but it sure felt like we had turned the tide and the heroes now had the edge. We finally pushed the villains all the way back to the villain base; I think many lost heart and left the zone. Besieging the villain base didn't seem like it would be fun, so I declared victory and left the zone.

From there I went to a Cap au Diable SF. The team leader asked me to play a dominator (not quite sure why, but no one asks for them, so why not), so I brought Idolator (20 mind/fire dominator). Our team mix was:

AR/traps corruptor
rad/rad corruptor
crab spider
dark/fire brute
SS/dark brute
spine/ninj stalker
thug/poison MM
mind/fire dominator (me)

We had several people getting exp so it was resolved we'd fight our way through most stuff rather than stealth. Unfortunately we weren't very good at staying together or working as a team, so this was kind of a mess, with the team occasionally getting split up into multiple fights, or someone jumping into a spawn and dying to the alpha strike before anyone helps them, that sort of thing. We finally tried to get our act together and follow just one brute in order to stay together; this helped, some. We had one team wipe in the mission against the CoT Librarian, and two team wipes in the mission where you kidnap a technician and get hit by Longbow ambushes. We did the final mission by killing Infernal outright, then clearing the way to each glowy and clicking it, then finally trying to pull Bat'Zul up to the entrance where we killed him. Finished the TF in 1hr 50mins for 10 merits (5.45 MPH) and got Idolator to level 21.

I finished the night doing a 3rd villain respec. The team leader asked for a brute, so I played Mega (50 SS/elec brute). Our team mix was:

bane spider
SS/elec brute (me)
fortunata
night widow
SS/inv brute

I offered to switch to a corruptor when the second brute joined, but the team leader felt that 2 brutes and 3 VEATs should do fine, and he was right. We stomped everything in sight without any difficulty whatsoever, completing the respec in 25mins 52sec to get 15 merits (34.79 MPH).


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 36.10 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
Lady Grey TF: 28.61 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Manticore TF: 20.67 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Loa Bone villain flashback: 18.65 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 18.34 MPH (avg of 5 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Silver Mantis SF: 17.5 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Imperious TF: 16.15 MPH (avg of 13 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 15.76 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Citadel TF: 14.30 MPH (avg of 9 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Origin of Power villain flashback: 8.56 MPH (1 run)
Katie TF: 8.24 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Cap au Diable SF: 7.99 MPH (avg of 4 runs)
Hit List villain flashback: 7.96 MPH (1 run)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals villain flashback: 4.68 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.74 MPH (avg of 3 runs)

1/29/2009

Started the evening playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) as an exemplar on an 8-player team of Sisterhood & friends running level 45 radio missions in Peregrine Island. This went pretty well overall (earned 1.22M infl over the course of several missions) except we did have one team wipe trying to enter a mission with its entrance on Monster Island; somehow we managed to aggro several GMs to park themselves directly on our mission door.

After that team broke up I played Fire Emerald (29 fire/fire blaster) on a Citadel TF. Our team mix was:

kin/psy defender
3 scrappers (fire/shield, bs/shield, spine/fire)
earth/thermal controller
fire/fire blaster
fire/dark tanker

The spine scrapper disconnected after the first mission and didn't return, but the support types were good about buffing and we had good DPS, so we didn't have any trouble. Finished in 1hr 55mins for 30 merits (15.65 MPH) and got Fire Emerald to 30, where I took Aid Self.

After that I played Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) on a Lady Grey TF. This took awhile to recruit to a full team, but we eventually got started with something like:

3 blasters
?/rad controller
2 scrappers (?/shield and ?/will)
stone/? tanker
fire/rad corruptor (me)

This was another speed run that failed missions 1 and 3, stealthed 2 and 5 and used TP Foe on mitos in mission 4. One of the scrappers grumbled about how unheroic it was to gank the various hostages that we rescued; I kinda sympathize with this, but as the sole villain on the team I made sure to say stuff like "Muhaha! We've successfully killed another innocent little girl!" Anyway, we had no problems and finished the TF in 1hr 3sec for 30 merits (29.98 MPH).

Finished the night playing Linda Lightspeed (32 kin/rad defender) on an 8-player pickup team running radio missions in Founders Falls. Linda is pretty freshly level 32 so I got to enjoy the benefits of Fulcrum Shifted Flurry...which is still kind of underwhelming on actual DPS, but certainly looks cool (Linda Lightspeed is my attempt at a "speedster" type character). This got Linda to level 33, where I added 3 slots to Fulcrum Shift and burned 160 merits on random Pool C recipe draws from the level 35-39 pool. My 8 random recipes were:

Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M
Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=6.77M
Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K

The LotG is hitting the jackpot, of course, and the Positron's Blast was quite nice too, so I was very happy with this result, which noticably raises my average payoff for random recipes.

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 36.75 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
Lady Grey TF: 28.61 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Manticore TF: 20.67 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Loa Bone villain flashback: 18.65 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 18.34 MPH (avg of 5 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Silver Mantis SF: 17.5 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Imperious TF: 16.15 MPH (avg of 13 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 15.76 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Citadel TF: 14.30 MPH (avg of 9 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Cap au Diable SF: 8.84 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Origin of Power villain flashback: 8.56 MPH (1 run)
Katie TF: 8.24 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Hit List villain flashback: 7.96 MPH (1 run)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals villain flashback: 4.68 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.74 MPH (avg of 3 runs)

[u]Random recipe draw results (to date)[u]

POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=33.5M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
2 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=6.77M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.7M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=234K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL POOL C HERO SIDE: 206.955M infl, 820 merits, 252K infl/merit

POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 132.053M infa, 220 merits, 600K infa/merit

POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

1/28/2009

I was out of town for the weekend, so missed the whole double exp weekend, but here's what I did the rest of the week anyway.

Over the last week Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) ran several solo flashbacks to pick up quick & easy merits. An Origin of Power flashback took 14mins 1sec for 2 merits and the Origin of Power badge (8.56 MPH); I kind of thought it would be quicker since it was 5 "talk to contact" missions and only 1 door mission, but that door mission had 10 glowies in addition to killing the boss. Three Loa Bone flashbacks (a simple 1-mission assassination) took 2m47s, 3m20s and 3m 32s, each for 1 merit (avg 18.65 MPH). Three Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti flashbacks took 3m32s, 3m16s and 3m57s, each for 1 merit (avg 16.74 MPH). Two Vahzilok Conference flashbacks took 14m41s and 16m3s, each for 4 merits (avg 15.62 MPH). All this gave me enough merits to buy another random Pool C recipe for 20 merits, and I got a level 33 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) valued at the black market at 2.12M.

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined a successful RWZ raid on Tue 1/20 which ran for 50 minutes (including the time standing around waiting for people to show up, and pylon killing), and netted her 200 Vanguard merits, 2 Reward Merits (for the Master-at-Arms GM; 2.4MPH) and 489K influence.

Samurai-ko (24 katana/will scrapper) finished Stephanie Peebles' story arc and got the Wedding Band temp power; but either I didn't get reward merits or just didn't get a message telling me I got them, not sure which. Don't know why.

On 1/20 I also did an Imperious TF as Mayday (41 fortunata) with a team mix of:

3 scrappers (db/dark, bs/will, bs/shield)
2 blasters (nrg/?, sonic/?)
fortunata (me)
kin/psy defender
TA/arch defender

This archetype mix looked awfully DPS-heavy and support-light, but it worked a lot better than I expected; we had good players and aggressively cleared our way through the TF with no serious problems, finishing in a speedy 1hr 18mins and gaining 25 merits (19.23 MPH). Some of the scrappers were so addicted to killing Romans that we stayed in the last mission wiping out Cimeroran traitors until the whole zone was clear, getting Mayday to level 43. (I asked them why they hated Romans so, and one scrapper shrugged and said "They never shower.") This gave me enough slots to 6-slot Mayday's Tactical Training: Maneuvers with a set of 6 Red Fortune, giving a bonus +2.5% range DEF. Mayday's defenses are now quite close to capped when her Mind Link buff is up.

I messed around starting even more newbie alts, restarting my peacebringer with another name (still only got to level 4) and making another TA/archery defender (got to level 3, but still doesn't seem that exciting to me).

Last Wednesday I did a Citadel TF as Fire Emerald (27 fire/fire blaster) with a team mix of:

will/nrg tanker
spine/SR scrapper
ill/rad controller
spine/regen scrapper
emp/ice defender
plant/kin controller
fire/fire blaster

This was a very good team and we blitzed through the TF in only 1hr 27mins, suffering 0 deaths and gaining 30 merits (20.69 MPH).

Went out of town for the weekend, but got back on Monday to find that Police Woman (50 AR/dev) had been logged out in City Hall long enough to get the City Official day job badge, and this combined with the Law Enforcer day job gave her the Police Chief accolade, which I immediately picked as my new badge title. This puts me up to 537 badges, and also eventually gave me a police baton temp power, though I think I had to log out in city hall one more time before this power appeared for me (with only 1 use, but it was free to brandish it -- a black nightstick looking thing).

I spent some time PvPing in Recluse's Victory against a fortunata and brute. I mostly got beat up (fortunata still wreck me in PvP, though I13 is a little better; now they are merely heavily advantaged, instead of auto-win), but I did get a few kills in, which triggered a pretty typical complaint of "You only killed me because you had a heavy" (conveniently ignoring the fact that I was fighting them 1-on-2).

Went from there to join a Lady Grey TF with a team mix of:

2 fire/fire blasters
MA/regen scrapper
emp/rad defender
AR/dev blaster (me)
stone/SS tanker
fire/kin controller
ice/rad controller

Got an unflattering remark about my costume being stripperific, but I shrugged it off (I like Police Woman's outfit, and I've seen far worse). This was a speed LGTF run that intentionally failed missions 1 and 3 and stealthed missions 2 and 5, completing in a very speedy 59mins for 30 merits (30.51 MPH). Also got 10 Vanguard Merits and 970K infl.

Did a Manticore TF as Linda Lightspeed (30 kin/rad defender) with a team mix of:

fire/dev blaster
bs/shield scrapper
fire/kin controller
nrg/nrg blaster
inv/SS tanker
spine/regen scrapper
dark/dark defender
kin/rad defender (me)

This was a good team that had no trouble with the TF. I got to stealth a bunch of the missions, using Stealth/Superspeed for stealth and the safeguard Summon Teammates power to TP people. Late in the TF we also ran into two Paladin GMs in King's Row, which we decided to kill off for fun and merits. Finished the TF in just 1hr 2mins; counting the two Paladins, we got 29 merits (28.06 MPH).

After that I did an Imperious TF with Demolition Girls SG on Triumph server, playing Tera Watt (50 FF/elec defender). Our team mix was:

earth/fire dom
fire/fire blaster
SS/will brute
ninj/dark MM
elec/nrg blaster
FF/elec defender (me)
inv/axe tanker
plant/fire dom

I had started out wanting to play a blaster but switched to FF defender after seeing how support-light we were. Force fields and dark debuffs kept us at the defense cap, which was enough to get us through most of the TF, with a few deaths from lucky hits. In the final fight against Romulus, I repeatedly tried Detention Fielding the healer Nictus AV; the Detention Field seemed to hit, but it didn't have any apparent effect (did not stop healing, could still attack the Nictus). I also tried using Force Bubble several times; I think this really helped against the Phalanx computer in the third mission, and for keeping the nictus shards and Roman ambushes off of us in the final Romulus fight (they do have range attacks, but the knockback seemed to keep them off balance). Finished in 1hr 47mins for 25 merits (14.02 MPH).

Did yet another Imperious TF, this time on Liberty as Mayday (43 fortunata). We were on Ruthless difficulty and our team mix was:

2 fortunata
thug/poison MM
spine/dark scrapper
fire/dark corruptor
MA/will scrapper
stone/fire tanker
dark/dark brute

We were defense capped from the VEAT buffs and didn't have any serious problems, finishing in 1hr 38mins for another 25 merits (15.31 MPH) and getting Mayday to 44, where I took Aim.

Last night I started off playing with an 8-player mid teens Demolition Girls SG team on Protector server, dusting off Swordswoman (17 bs/fire scrapper that I hadn't logged on in 222 days; had about a level of Patrol exp) and running through the Jim Temblor story arc for 3 merits and getting Swordswoman to level 19 (took Whirling Sword at 18).

Finished last night by playing Samurai-ko (25 katana/will scrapper) as an SK on a Citadel TF with:

fire/regen scrapper (logged off before 2nd to last mission with the intention of returning, but never returned)
dark/dark scrapper
spine/regen scrapper (spent most of TF either lost, AFK or zoning slowly)
katana/will scrapper (me)
archery/elec blaster (logged off before 2nd to last mission, I think out of frustration)
DB/regen scrapper (disconnected after first mission)
emp/sonic defender (claimed to be rusty after 1yr absence, but was actually quite good)

This seemed awfully scrapper heavy, and the team often succumbed to scrapperlock charging into fights or in different directions from each other. Our lone defender seemed pretty good at keeping us buffed and healed and not exploding with anger when we got ourselves killed anyway. Despite these hijinks we got through most of the TF pretty well, until the second to last mission. This was a door mission in Dark Astoria, and we happened across Adamastor GM standing around in the graveyard there. Someone wanted the badge and the team leader decided we should attack Adamastor; however, half the team went ahead and zoned into the mission instead. We found that 3 scrappers and 1 empath is insufficient to even dent Adamastor's health. One team member said he'd switch to a controller to get some debuffs; hitting Adamastor seemed futile, so I backed away to wait until we had debuffs (though another scrapper maintained scrapperlock and continued to beat on the giant monster relentlessly). Unfortunately he never did come back. It sounded like the people who entered the mission were attempting to fight in there, and blaster + mostly AFK scrapper did not do so well. After maybe fifteen minutes, the blaster got fed up with this and logged off. The new team leader recruited some outside help to come fight Adamastor and we finally dropped him after having spent about half an hour messing with Adamastor. We did get the Keeper of Secrets badge and some merits, though. After that, we were left with 3 scrappers and a defender to finish the last two missions; even with a reduced team, however, we were able to make short work of Vandal and complete the TF with a total time of 2hrs 50mins, gaining 32 merits (including the 2 for Adamastor; 11.29 MPH) and getting Samurai-ko to level 27 (took Soaring Dragon at 26).

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 36.75 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
Lady Grey TF: 27.93 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Manticore TF: 20.67 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Loa Bone villain flashback: 18.65 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 18.34 MPH (avg of 5 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Silver Mantis SF: 17.5 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Imperious TF: 16.15 MPH (avg of 13 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 15.76 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Citadel TF: 14.13 MPH (avg of 8 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Cap au Diable SF: 8.84 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Origin of Power villain flashback: 8.56 MPH (1 run)
Katie TF: 8.24 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Hit List villain flashback: 7.96 MPH (1 run)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals villain flashback: 4.68 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.74 MPH (avg of 3 runs)

[u]Random recipe draw results (to date)[u]

POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=6M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
1 Lockdown (Chance for +2 Mag) Wentw=3.7M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.7M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL POOL C HERO SIDE: 158.519M infl, 660 merits, 240K infl/merit

POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 132.053M infa, 220 merits, 600K infa/merit

POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

1/20/2009

(Long weekend - Long report)

On Friday night I started off playing Virtual Girl (32 rad/sonic defender), leading a 4-player Sisterhood team that did Kelly Nemmers' story arc in Croatoa, earning me 4 reward merits and getting Virtual Girl to 33. At that point I burned 340 merits (mostly from WL farming) on 17 random level 35-39 Pool C recipe draws, and I got (all at level 33):

1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K

Total value=78.979M influence (232K infl per merit). The Numina's, Obliteration and Mako's Bite all made me quite happy with this result, despite the 3 crappy snipe recipes.

On Saturday I joined an Imperious TF as Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster). Our team lineup shifted a lot but finally settled on:

katana/SR scrapper
fire/nrg blaster
?/will brute
?/regen stalker
AR/dev blaster (me)
ill/emp controller
AR/rad corruptor
storm/elec defender

We had 4 mentors and 4 SKs, but as soon as we entered the first mission, the stalker (who was also team leader) unSK'd to play at 46, and the even lower level scrapper unSK'd and became the 46 stalker's SK. While I've been on TFs where people wanted to run unSK'd for extra exp, for some reason the way they did it (staying SK'd to 50s until we started, then rearranging into a classic "bridge" configuration) really rubbed me the wrong way. This made me uneasy enough that I told the team that I didn't want to support PLing these two, and I would quit so they could get someone else. In the stalker's defense, he did say he would only do this for the first two missions and would SK up for the AVs; but my feeling is that a -5 stalker and a -6 scrapper contribute almost nothing to a team, so I simply wasn't OK with this set up. It was clear that they wouldn't agree to SK back up to 49, so I thanked them for the invite and quit the TF. They complained I was making them restart the TF, which did make me feel guilty (I don't like quitting TFs), but we were less than 5 minutes into the first mission, so I doubt I inconvenienced them more than they had already inconvenienced me.

When I told some friends about what happened, they sympathized, and suddenly they all wanted to start a new Imperious TF with me. This was awfully nice of them. So I accidentally became leader of an Imperious TF on Tenacious difficulty with a team mix of:

AR/dev blaster (me)
earth/kin controller
night widow
necro/dark MM
fire/traps corruptor
earth/sonic controller
ice/SS tanker
TA/archery defender

We again had a mix of mentors and SKs and people joked around about unSK'ing for extra exp, but everyone was good so I didn't have to kick anyone. We had a lot of support on the team (albeit less common ones like traps, sonic and TA) which really helped us zoom through the TF. The first mission the ice tanker wanted to try pulling the whole mountaintop temple area down to the door we exited the caves from; this actually seemed to work and let us clear all the mobs, then go up and rescue Sister Solaris unopposed. In the third mission we pulled generals out of the valley of lag down to a bridge and killed them there, then skipped ahead to the end. We pulled Romulus down to the computer console area; for some reason he was scared of us (not sure why) and ran away for much of the fight, until we immobed him with web grenades and trick arrows. In the final mission we fought through to the final encounter and simply beat Romulus up. Using Surveillance, I saw that our various debuffs (trick arrows, sonic, traps, dark, and my own achilles heel/surveillance) had managed to drop Romulus to below -100% resistances. We finished in 1hr 30mins for 25 merits (16.67 MPH), and I earned 5.2M influence along the way.

A bit later on Saturday, I did yet another Imperious TF, this time as Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor). Our team mix was:

ice/nrg tanker
fire/rad controller
fire/? blaster
broadsword/shield scrapper
fire/nrg blaster
plant/kin controller
fire/rad corruptor (me)
MA/SR scrapper

With tanker, 2 rads, a kin, and plenty of DPS, this was a very strong team that blasted through the ITF in a speedy 1hr 16mins. Indigo got 25 merits (19.74 MPH), 2.26M infamy and a Hamidon Goo salvage drop.

My SO got interested in CoH again (some kind of horrific guild/raiding drama was occurring on EQ2) and started a newbie plant/rad controller; I mentored down Olivia Q (50 MA/SR scrapper) to help run lowbie missions, and we went through the initial contact's missions, then into the Hollows, where I recruited a 6 player team to run Officer Wincott's and Flux's story arc missions. In my pickup Hollows team we had one complete newbie player (who actually seemed reasonably competent despite that) and 2 players who used to play CoH and recently returned from WoW (which I hope becomes a growing trend). Got my SO's controller from level 2 to level 15 in this way, and Olivia picked up the Weathergirl and Trolls Task Force badges, for beating Outcast bosses and generally hanging out in the Hollows.

Playing Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) I caught the tail end of a RWZ raid on Saturday, which involved much dying but scored me 28 vanguard merits.

Late on Saturday night I solo'd a bit with Mayday (39 fortunata), finally knocking out the Choose Your Own Adventure VEAT story arc. Despite this being offered at like level 15, the enemies in this arc scaled up to Mayday's level 39; it was pretty quick (maybe 13 mins) and scored me a hefty 7 reward merits, which immediately made me want to see if I could flashback it for more merits. Alas, it does not appear on the Pillar of Fire and Ice, at least for Mayday at 39. I also checked my 47 wolf spider and she isn't able to flashback it either. Will have to check again if/when I have a level 50 VEAT.

On Sunday I played around with making a few newbie characters on Liberty (yes, I'm a total altoholic), getting a peacebringer to level 5 (via an Atlas Park zombie invasion), soloing an elec/inv brute to 6, and soloing another arachnos widow to 3. I had the idea to make a night widow to compare with my fortunata; though it might ultimately make more sense to just give Mayday a night widow "second build". However, I'm not sure I'd get a good feel for the playstyle jumping into the archetype at high level rather than playing an alt up from level 1. Plus, total altoholic.

I spent some time playing Samurai-ko (14 katana/will scrapper), teaming up with my SO's plant/rad controller and inviting some friends from Sisterhood channel and elsewhere to join up. We ended up with an 8-player team heavy on melee characters and kinetics, which made for a very fast paced team. We knocked out Jim Temblor's story arc in Faultline (3 merits), then Penelope Yin's arc (another 3 merits), and part of the Stephanie Peeble's arc in Striga. We beat a Kurse AV, a Nocturne AV, a Silver Mantis AV (in a Steel Canyon safeguard), got the Rescuer and Pwnz badges, and did the cape and second costume missions. After much play on Sunday and Monday, Samurai-ko ended up at level 24. I took Rise to the Challenge at 16, Indomitable Will at 18, Quick Recovery at 20, Mind over Body at 22 (which feels late in the build, but I was with tankers most of the way up to here and other powers seemed more important) and Lotus Drops at 24. I was surprised that Lotus Drops has a slightly different animation than Whirling Sword; similar spin, but seems a little quicker and ends in a different pose.

I did yet another Imperious TF, this time as Mayday (39 fortunata) as a lackey. Team mix was very unconventional:

crab spider
AR/traps corruptor
robo/traps MM
2 fortunata
ill/emp controller
MA/SR scrapper
fire/psi dom

However, we did have capped defense nearly the whole time due to stacked Maneuvers, Force Field Generators, Mind Link, and Fortitude, which pretty well let us walk over everything. We still had people occasionally die (from lucky hits I guess), which let us fire off Vengeance for even more defense, and they'd get rez'd back in so it really didn't slow us down. At one point real numbers reported I had a sickening +177% defense to all positions!

During the second mission against the Nictus crystals, our trappers were very diligent about laying traps, which totally hosed the ambushes after each crystal. Capped defense let us destroy the computer console in mission 3 pretty easily; the waves of animating robots weren't a real threat. Surprisingly, despite the lack of a tanker or traditional debuff sets, we were able to maul the AVs in both the third and fourth missions without serious trouble; the traps and crab debuffs must've been very potent! We got our 300 Romans in the final mission atop the castle walls, rounding them up and genociding them with AoEs. Finished this ITF in a very speedy 1hr 17mins for 25 merits (19.48 MPH), getting Mayday to level 41, where I took Tactical Training: Vengeance.

I also had Mayday pick up the Steel Canyon mayhem exploration badge (via some trickery using a lower level alt to get and start the mayhem, then having someone invite Mayday to it) which got her the Invader accolade, and I 6-slotted her Tactical Training: Leadership power with Gaussian's Synch Fire Control, which gives her an additional +2.5% to all positional defenses.

On Monday I started off playing Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker). Checking the Black Market, I found that I had sold the level 30 Karma (Knockback protection) IO that I had gotten from the Ouro day job for a cool 22M infamy. I felt like I had been getting far more merits on hero side than villain side up to this point, so I decided to explore the possibility of getting villainous merits via flashbacks. With stealth and burst DPS, a stalker seemed ideal for this purpose.

I started off with a flashback of Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti. This was basically a single mission where I had to go in and assassinate a single NPC and his group (usually just one extra minion). Stealthing past everything else, I was able to complete this in 3mins 3sec for 1 merit (19.67 MPH) and gaining the Stone Cold badge. This seemed very good, but I figure there is a random factor due to travel time and searching the cave for the boss time, so I ran it again. My second try took 2mins 47sec for 1 merit (21.56 MPH). This is awfully good, but the game only counts the time between accepting the mission (in Ouroboros) and completing the assassination; if I want to repeat it, it doesn't count the travel time back to Ouroboros. This mission was so quick that my Ouro portal had not recharged by the time I was done; the 5 minute recharge time on the Ouro portal could actually pose a bottleneck. I decided not to consider this as part of my measured time, though, since I theoretically could install a Pillar of Ice and Fire in my villain base in order to avoid that bottleneck.

Next I did a flashback of Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals. This is also just one mission, but it required clicking 3 glowies and "defeating disciples". I stealthed in and got the 3 glowies, but the mission didn't end. Some ambushes were spawned in response to my clicking the glowies, too. Didn't see any sort of boss, so I decided to take out all the Mortificators, thinking that might be required. To my chagrin, this still wasn't enough. I ended up having to kill every single thing in the entire mission, which took me 12mins 49sec and got me 1 merit (4.68 MPH) and the Mask Maker badge. I probably could do it faster now that I know it's a defeat all, but it didn't seem promising enough to gather more data on.

Next I tried a flashback of the Vahzilok Conference. This was three missions; the first was a straightforward assassination which went quickly. The second required finding and escorting 3 victims to the Vahzilok surgeons across a huge outdoor map, and even has a lengthy cut scene thrown in, so I was pretty worried this would be a time killer. On this particular run, I was very lucky and found one victim very close to the surgeons, and two others close together so I could walk them both over at once; probably most of the time it should take longer. The third mission was also an assassination; it was a huge multi-story office building that took awhile to work through, and the final target was an elite boss Facemaker. I wasn't prepared for an EB (I had forgotten there was one), but managed to narrowly beat Facemaker and a zombie lackey in a close fight. With some inspirations it would've been easy, though. Finished the flashback in 14mins 58sec for 4 merits (16.04 MPH).

Next up was a flashback of the Hit List arc. Again, three missions; a simple assassination, then a kidnapping where you escort the hostage only a very short distance, then the final mission requires killing 3 static objects (in my run, two were guarded by Wyvern, one was undefended; I ignored the Wyvern to kill the file cabinet, then ran away from them), clicking a glowy and assassinating a boss. I lost some time on the first mission when I automatically took the Pillar's teleport to the contact, which is the Radio in Port Oakes, but the first mission was actually in Cap au Diable, so I had to travel overland to the ferry to zone to Cap. With one mission in Cap and two in Port Oakes, zone hopping was pretty much required, which may cause this arc to be slower than others. Nevertheless I completed this one in 15mins 4sec for 2 merits (7.96 MPH), and got the Troubleshooter badge (for Ouro "mending").

After that I played Mayday (41 fortunata) on an 8-player Fallen LEGION team doing missions in Grandville. I tried getting Ghost Widow as a patron AV, but even after I selected her via the Arbiter, she refused to talk to me (I think my Welcome to Ouroboros story arc was blocking the patron story arc). Vengefully killed Ghost Widow as an AV in someone else's patron story arc, as well as beating a hero-level Citadel in another mission.

I solo'd Mayday through a couple old story arcs, getting 6 merits from Marshal Brass's very grey story arc and 2 from the Pilgrim's Welcome to Ouroboros arc (and after I cleared this, Ghost Widow would indeed talk to me again). I spent 80 of Mayday's reward merits on level 35-39 Pool C recipe draws, getting (all at level 41):

1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) no history for level 41 at BMkt, but level 40 was priced at 5M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K

This was a total value of 99.6M infamy for my 80 merits (1.24M inf/merit), which of course I was very happy with. I went ahead and crafted the LotG and slotted it in Mayday's Combat Training: Defense power, which raises her global recharge to 22.5%.

Late Monday night I played Linda Lightspeed (29 kin/rad defender) as a sidekick on a level 38 team with some friends and mostly pickup people. I got a costume compliment, mostly on her skin tone, which is very tan and has a nice contrast with her brightly colored uniform. We went into a Brickstown safeguard with an 8-player team, with 2 tankers, 1 scrapper, 2 blasters, 2 storm defenders and me. Sadly the stormies were pretty bad about blowing stuff around, and as a kin I really could only heal the melee characters effectively, especially since the opponents we were facing were Nemesis, which squishies really don't want to stand next to. We had a lot of deaths (mainly the stormies and the blasters) but managed to stop the bank robbery and get most of the way through a side mission preventing a store breakin before time ran out. Did a few more door missions after that which followed a similar pattern; I could keep melee alive, but squishies would die, and stuff would get blown around a lot by storms. I tried to educate people a little, explaining how the kinetic heals come from mobs so the stormies should try and heal the squishies, and that uncontrolled knockback makes meleers unhappy, but I don't think much of this sank in. Nevertheless Linda got to level 30 (where I took Increase Density) before we called it a night.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 36.75 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Lady Grey TF: 25.35 MPH (1 run)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Hurt the Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 20.62 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Silver Mantis SF: 17.5 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Manticore TF: 16.98 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Imperious TF: 16.14 MPH (avg of 10 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 16.04 MPH (1 run)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Citadel TF: 13.51 MPH (avg of 6 runs)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Cap au Diable SF: 8.84 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Katie TF: 8.24 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Hit List villain flashback: 7.96 MPH (1 run)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Steal Facemaker's Reanimation Chemicals villain flashback: 4.68 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.91 MPH (avg of 2 runs)

[u]Random recipe draw results (to date)[u]

I restructured my random recipe statistics away from "good/bad" (personal opinion) to be based purely on market value, which is hopefully more scientific. Looking at it this way, a few recipes valued at 20M or more skew the average value up a lot. The "average" recipe value about 5M, yet I've only gotten 8 recipes worth 5M or more out of 41 recipes (19.5%). Personally, I'm happy with any recipe I get that is worth 1M or more; 26 out of my 41 draws (63.4%) have exceeded that threshold. So overall I'm quite happy with random rolls.

POOL C HERO SIDE:
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
2 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=23.6M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=20M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=6M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
1 Lockdown (Chance for +2 Mag) Wentw=3.7M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.7M
1 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.1M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
1 Touch of Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.82M
2 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
1 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=855K
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=500K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=50K
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=6K
TOTAL POOL C HERO SIDE: 158.519M infl, 660 merits, 240K infl/merit

POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 129.953M infa, 200 merits, 650K infa/merit

POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

1/16/2009

On Wednesday night, I logged in just as the PvPEC Throwdown event was forming up in Pocket D, so I went over there and joined up as Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster). The format was a series of free-for-all arena matches, with all players exemped to level 40. Low scoring players were eliminated between matches.

Our first match had 8 players and was on the Skyway map, with 4 tankers (!), 2 blasters (both AR/dev!) and 2 scrappers. It felt very unusual to have this many melee characters at an arena event; prior to I13, I've only seen this many meleers in arena when the event specifically required everyone to play melee or play "gimp" characters. As in all FFA matches, killstealing seemed the best strategy and as a blaster I felt pretty effective at that; most of my kills seemed to be off of the scrappers, who were noticably easier to kill than the tankers. There was one will/nrg tanker who must've decided I was squishy looking, as he relentlessly pursued me throughout this match, repeatedly trying to Energy Transfer me. At one point I gleefully unloaded Full Auto into a furball of four of the melee people slugging it out on the street; not sure if anyone actually died to it, but it was fun to catch them all in the AoE. I ended up winning this match with a score of 5 kills; second place was the tanker who was chasing me around, who got 4 kills (probably at least 2 of which were me).

Second match we were down to 6 players; some of the previous round was eliminated, but some latecomers were added. We were down to 2 tanks, 1 brute, 1 scrapper and 3 blasters (two AR/dev and one AR/nrg .. I have no idea why AR suddenly became popular in arena). We were on the Perez Park map, a map I have a lot of trouble with usually due to my lack of travel powers (it's hard for me to jump to the treetops from the ground level). Nevertheless I ran around shooting people. At one point I nearly killed the other AR/dev, but she managed to evade me by the simple expedient of ... flying up out of my range. Argh. I did manage to chase down and kill the scrapper a couple times and the blaster once, I think; I didn't really seem to dent the tankers or brutes much the times I went after them. This was a low scoring match over all; I won with 3 kills, and there was a three way tie for second with 1 kill each.

I was given a bye in the third round as people fought it out for the privilege of fighting me (a very weird feeling, as I certainly wasn't ever a high ranking arena player before).

In the final round I got to face off 1-on-1 against the will/nrg tanker that had relentlessly stalked me during the first match. This was a tough matchup for me; it seemed like the resists and regen from willpower would heal him up faster than I could deal DPS, and I noticed he also had Aid Self in his build, in case the other healing wasn't enough, I guess.

Since arena store powers were allowed, I bought an arena fly pack, and had the initial idea to just fly over his head and shoot him, while keeping him web grenaded to the floor. Since energy melee has no range attacks at level 40, I figured this would let me safely rain bullets down on him from above. He anticipated this and had temp web grenades from the arena store, but you only get a very few of these and they aren't very accurate, so that was no problem. The real problem with this strategy is that the arena fly pack only has 2 minutes of charge, and the match was 10 minutes long. On top of that, the arena fly pack uses a horrendous amount of END.

After running myself out of END, I quickly discarded the hover/shoot strategy (probably would've worked if I really had the Hover power, but I don't) and switched to a kiting strategy, where I would constantly run away from the tanker, and occasionally squeeze off Burst, Slug and Web Grenade attacks on him to keep his movement suppressed and steady damage on him. His strategy seemed to be to run and jump at me with Energy Transfer queued and hope he hits. We were on the Perez map again and I started getting pretty good at hopping from the ground level to the treetop level (sometimes aided by a brief squirt from the jet pack). He would periodically hit me with ET and get me to like 40% life, and I would run away, often jumping up to the tree level while leaving him web grenaded below, and Aid Self back to full. My shots would occasionally get him to around 60-75% life, but then he would heal it back; the fact that I had to keep moving and had to steadily web grenade him probably lowered my DPS considerably, but there was really no way I could stand toe-to-toe with him as his melee damage was so much greater than my ranged damage. His EM occasionally would stun me, which was scary as I had not brought any break frees (reasoning that I13 mez is much shorter duration, and with defiance I can still shoot while mez'd, so why worry?), but I managed to evade him for 9 of the 10 minutes. In the last minute of the match I decided to make my move, and chugged all the remaining reds I had and started lighting him up with bullets. I got him down to about 50% life, at which point I hit Full Auto, hoping to finish him off. This ultimately proved a mistake; he rushed me while I was locked in the long animation, and a few heavy Energy Melee hits KO'd me, while my attack wasn't enough to finish him off. This caused him to win the match, 1 to 0. In retrospect, perhaps I should've kept kiting and played for the draw, but that seems so boring, so I'm okay with how it went down.

I'm impressed with how much more effective melee is in I13 PvP, and I'm honestly not sure I can kill a willpower tanker solo under these rules; but then, I couldn't solo a willpower tanker in I12 either, so I guess it's really no different. Fly also seemed surprisingly useful in I13 PvP, though that may be a side effect of the resurgence of melee PvPers who would have trouble getting to a flyer.

Later that night I played Schadenfreude (37 AR/pain corruptor). I acquired and slotted a set of 5 Positron's Blast in Flamethrower (for a +6.25% global recharge bonus) and joined a 6 player Fallen LEGION team doing missions. We had a team wipe in a door mission against a room where we aggroed multiple Longbow spawns, including a Longbow Ballista EB, but after recovering we managed to get past them and take down a hero-level Positron.

After that I played Virtual Girl (31 rad/sonic defender) on a 3-player Sisterhood team, doing a few Croatoa missions to get to level 32 (where I took Mutation), then switched to Linda Lightspeed (28 kin/rad defender) to do a few more missions that got her to level 29.

On Thursday night I started by joining a Sisterhood team on an Imperious TF. I was asked to bring debuffs, so I played Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) for her first ITF. Our team mix was:

bs/shield scrapper
bs/regen scrapper
TA/archery defender
mind/FF controller
fire/rad corruptor (me)
peacebringer
ice/rad controller
ice/DB tanker

The team leader felt this was a very strong team and set the mission difficulty to Invincible. Despite this, the ITF was very easy for this team, which had tanking, good damage and tons of buff/debuff. We were also very into Leadership; I counted we had 4 stacked Maneuvers and Tactics, and 2 stacked Assault. At one point our pickup controller commented, "I love you, team! Gonna wrap you up and take you home!" We crushed all in our path. We did have occasional deaths (I think most of us were capped on DEF but lucky hits could leak through) which I gleefully capitalized on with Vengeance/Fallout/Mutation. In the final mission, the leader asked us to keep Imperious alive and clear a path to Romulus so that Imperious would help fight the end boss. We dutifully did this (getting all the "traitors" out of the way before the main event), and were careful to keep Imperious from accidentally pulling the AVs at the end; but Imperious had ideas of his own and while we were fighting Romulus he decided to go off on his own and solo some Roman traitors elsewhere. Despite this, we were easily able to overcome Romulus and finished the invincible-difficulty ITF in 1hr 45mins, earning 25 merits (14.29 MPH). Indigo also racked up 4.01M infamy (even with SG mode on), Hamidon Goo, Chronal Skip and Platinum salvage drops, and had one player comment that her outfit "looks awesome" in action.

I also joined a pickup Katie TF with Virtual Girl (32 rad/sonic defender) which went a lot less well. I theoretically was claiming the last slot on the TF, and when I joined we were all in Croatoa except for one scrapper who was in Atlas Park and seemed very confused as to how to get to Croatoa. This scrapper spent the next 15 minutes of our lives being completely unable to find his way to Croatoa. Another player tried to help him by getting him to enter his SG base and use a Croatoa teleporter, but he apparently entered someone else's SG base and got confused. I tried to say, it's a train stop, find the Green Line and it'll go there. This didn't seem to help. Finally our tanker got fed up with waiting and quit to play with someone else. This motivated the team leader to kick the scrapper who couldn't figure out how to get to Croatoa off the team. Said scrapper told our team leader that he hates us and hopes we all die. That scrapper must've had some Gypsy blood or something, because, boy did our TF go poorly.

Fiddling around recruiting for a few more minutes, we finally started the TF with a team of 2 scrappers, 4 defenders, 1 controller, 1 blaster. One of these defenders was only there to start the Katie TF (the original team leader couldn't) and so he immediately quit the team after starting the TF. The remaining 7 of us started fighting witches. The person who inherited the star must have been on high difficulty, because the minions all seemed to be level 36 and the AVs were higher level than I expected. On our team we had 2 rads, 1 stormy and a kinetic, which seems pretty good on paper, but for some reason our team just work very well; whenever we met Mary and a spawn of witches, our team would quickly get spread out all over the place, and with our only healing being Radiant Aura, this made it very hard to heal anyone. Instead, I ended up rezzing a lot of people. Several of us were on the low end of the TF range also; think we had a couple 30s and a couple 32s and 33s. I tried to suggest that one scrapper tank Mary while the other scrapper clears out minions with the other DPS; I feel like this helped a little, but not enough. We suffered a team wipe on Mary 6 (who was level 37, which seems higher than expected) and then two team wipes on Mary 7 (also level 37). It seemed hopeless to get past Mary 7, 8, 9 and 10 so we decided to call it quits.

I went on to solo Virtual Girl's aura mission and level 35 vendor mission from Mark IV, clearing her debt and leaving her at the high end of level 32.


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 36.75 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Lady Grey TF: 25.35 MPH (1 run)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Silver Mantis SF: 17.5 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Manticore TF: 16.98 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Imperious TF: 15.07 MPH (avg of 7 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Citadel TF: 13.51 MPH (avg of 6 runs)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Cap au Diable SF: 8.84 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Katie TF: 8.24 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.91 MPH (avg of 2 runs)

1/14/2009

On Monday night I joined a Cap au Diable SF organized on LHO. The team leader specifically asked for a stealther, so I played Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker). This is probably the first SF I've been on where the team wanted a stalker over anything else; the team leader felt stealth was particularly critical for the last mission of the Cap SF. A RWZ raid was occuring at the same time we were recruiting, so the team was very slow to fill, and 3 of us ended up hitting Bloody Bay for Shivan Shards to kill time while we waited for a 4th player. We finally got a fourth player and started the Cap SF with a team of:

mace/shield brute
fire/storm corruptor
MA/ninj stalker (me)
necro/poison mastermind

Not too long ago I had respec'd Recall Friend as Spy Girl's level 18 power, so I was able to stealth/TP people through most missions, and the SF went pretty quickly. I had accidentally left Spy Girl logged off in Ouroboros and was getting random recipe drops at the end of missions due to the day job temp power; these were mostly generic level 30 recipes, but after one mission, I got a level 30 Karma: Knockback protection (black market value=11M infamy) as my day job recipe drop! This made me feel like Ouro must be the Best Day Job Power Ever.

In the final mission I got assigned to stealth click all the glowy altars while the other 3 fought Infernal. I had never actually done this but a friend had mentioned that a short character can hide behind the altar to avoid demon aggro while clicking it, and this technique worked really well for me.

Spy Girl hides behind the altar, avoiding demons

I did also find that touching lava at any point breaks stealth and draws aggro, which gave me a few scary moments running from demons, but I managed to get all the altars and spawned Bat'Zul, who we pulled into the entryway and beat up to finish the SF in 46 minutes (though, this is not counting the recruiting time), gaining 10 merits (13.04 MPH).

After that, I switched to Mega (50 SS/elec brute) and joined an 8-player villain team taking down NPC heroes in Recluse's Victory. I saw a couple player heroes while there, but they seemed to be observing or even helping us with the badging by manipulating pillboxes, so we didn't actually fight. While there we took down Synapse, Positron, Sister Psyche, Manticore and Statesman, gaining the Breakneck, Destroyer, Interrogator, Deadeye and Oppressor badges. These heroes were actually decently tough, especially since we had our powers all I13PVPized, and so a few villain deaths per Hero was pretty common. When we got a respawn of Manticore/Statesman after slaying them once already, the team kinda lost steam as everyone had those badges already and enough people trickled away that we had to stop.

After that I played Mayday (39 fortunata) on a 7 player Fallen LEGION villain team for awhile, doing missions in Grandville. We took out a Hero-level Serafina as part of Scirocco's patron story arc. I got a compliment on Mayday's bio story, which was nice.

After that team broke up I switched to April Fool (50 thug/TA mastermind) and joined a 4-player Sisterhood team for a few missions in Rikti War Zone. We did a few generic Levantera missions, then the last mission of the Strange Case of Benjamin Decker story arc. We were supposed to avoid patrols, but being the uberviolent people we were, we killed a patrol. This spawned a series of ambushes and finally a Security Chief, who we were also supposed to avoid, but killed instead, causing the mission to fail. We also ran through the tail end of April's Welcome to Vanguard story arc, scoring her 3 reward merits. April also got the Zookeeper badge for Rikti monkeys, and a compliment on how her dual pistols looked (I've colored them bright pink and neon green to look like squirt guns).

Finished Monday night by joining an Imperious TF as Mercy Beaucoup (39 emp/ice defender). Our team mix was:

ill/TA controller
emp/ice defender (me)
SS/inv brute
inv/SS tanker
bs/regen scrapper
SS/shield brute
fire/rad corruptor
some kind of ninja stalker

This ITF had many experienced players on it, but had lots of problems; it never quite felt like we gelled as a team. Quite frequently our brutes and scrappers would all head different directions, splitting the team up into 2 or 3 sub-teams and be fighting in different areas. Our tanker was SK'd and didn't have Temp Invuln or Unyielding and consequently had lethal resist of maybe 10%, and he died a ton (in fairness, he said it was his first tanker and he was very open to build advice; I told him I really thought he should get TI and UY). The invuln brute ended up being our "tank", though only a few of us seemed to reliably follow him. Our shield brute was playing as an unSK'd level 46 (later 47), didn't have the power that grants resistance to defense debuffs (because "Grant Cover sucks"), and also had a bad habit of leeroying into his own spawn of mobs to see how tough he was; also died a ton. One player was perpetually distracted by his girlfriend, and another was distracted due to playing at work and had to keep talking to his employees (must be good to be a manager!).

I'm not blameless either; the team leader commented I was the first empath he'd ever seen that didn't have Resurrect, a power I've been avoiding taking because I feel empathy Resurrect is underwhelming compared to other rez powers. Normally this isn't an issue because not many people die, and when they do, you can give them an awaken; but on this team we had tons of deaths and a hero can't give awakens to villains, so Resurrect really wouldn't have helped. I tried to keep Fortitude and AB on people as much as possible, but I fear that with all the deaths and the lack of rez I must've seemed a terrible empath. In the first mission we had a semi-wipe when ambushed at the mountaintop shrine, but completed the mission; the second mission we got split up over and over in the caves of Nictus, resulting in a partial team wipe at one point. In the third mission, right after crossing the first bridge, I swear that somehow every single team member but me was soloing their own personal spawn of Romans, even the squishies; this was messy but we got through it. We had another near-team-wipe fighting the computer console and its robots. The final mission we actually did a bit better and managed to overpower Romulus 4 times (with a few stray deaths). Despite all these difficulties, we finished in 1hr 45mins for 25 reward merits (14.29 MPH), and got Mercy to level 41.

On Tuesday night I played Schadenfreude (36 AR/pain corruptor) on a 6-player team of Fallen LEGION SG; we did a Founder's Falls mayhem and some missions in Grandville that got Schadenfreude to level 37 and the Doc badge (for healing; ironically, I got this during a mission where we weren't really getting hurt, and I did no healing except leave the heal spam aura toggle on).

After that I joined a Hess TF with Linda Lightspeed (27 kin/rad defender). Our team mix was:

cold/ice defender
shield/mace tanker
FF/psy defender
earth/rad controller
archery/fire blaster
TA/archery defender
will/fire tanker
kin/rad defender (me)

We were support-heavy and had no problems getting through the Hess TF, stealthing through missions when possible. Finished in 49 minutes for 15 merits (18.37 MPH) and got Linda to level 28, where I took Cosmic Burst, which is supposed to be an amazing attack but so far just seems okay. Maybe it'll wow me more after I get some slots in it.

Finished up Tuesday night on another Imperious TF, this time playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster). Our team mix was:

stone/fire tanker
warshade
AR/dev blaster
psy/mental blaster
bs/SR scrapper
plant/kin controller
bs/regen scrapper
MA/SR scrapper

Originally the kin controller was playing a sonic dispersion character, but the team leader (the stone tanker) asked him to switch to a kin. I was rather dubious about doing this with only one kin for team support, but gave it a try anyway. With so little support we quickly racked up player deaths (though I managed to avoid dying myself, the rest of the team died quite a bit, especially our kin and one of the scrapper SKs), probably as many or more than the ITF I did the previous night. But I found that I had a much better attitude about it on Tuesday night, since (a) as a blaster, I don't feel it's my fault when people get themselves killed, and (b) Police Woman has vengeance and resuscitate, which makes player deaths into opportunity! On reflection, though, that it's weird that my blaster can rez and likes it, while my empath can't; thinking about that, I really should work rez into Mercy's build.

I used Surveillance some to snoop on various enemies. Most Romans, even generals and Romulus himself, don't seem to have any base resists; the one Cyclops I spied on had 25% smash/lethal and put up Unyielding and Unstoppable at various times. The computer console had no resists; just a lot of HP, I guess. Requiem, for reasons I don't understand, had 25% fire resist and -25% cold resist; I have no idea why a vampire AV should be vulnerable to cold. The Nictus Essence AVs didn't show any resists on Surveillance, but this seems inconsistent with how hard they are to actually kill; dunno what's up with that.

In the second mission (the Nictus caves), our team leader took the unusual approach of completely ignoring ambushes after each crystal, instead just moving on to the next room. Surprisingly, the ambushes did not seem to find us if we moved forward before they arrived. We did occasionally have to clear them on the way back to explore the next cave passage. The third mission, we pulled all the generals out of the Valley of Lag and down to the bridge, to avoid lag issues, then stealth/team TP'd to the computer console. Quite a few Romans still had aggro on us and followed us there, but we managed to dispose of them and the AVs without much trouble.

The final mission we skipped directly to Romulus because one of the scrappers was almost out of time. We were clearing around Romulus when one of the scrappers unexpectedly aggroed Romulus and the 4 Nictus AVs, throwing us into the final fight. It's a bit surprising to me that we didn't all die right then and there, but we ended up overpowering Romulus through sheer DPS (along with Transfusions from the kin and a few Vengeances from me when people dropped). Our short timer scrapper was able to stay through the AV fight but had to log right after, so missed the cleanup, where we killed another 300 Romans to finish the mission. Completed the TF in 1hr 43mins for 25 merits (14.56 MPH); along the way I gained 4.01M influence and found a purple Coercive Persuasion (CNFS/ENDRDX) recipe [~2.4M infl at Wentworths].


[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 48.33 MPH (1 run)
1st villain respec: 40.91 MPH (1 run)
3rd villain respec: 36.75 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd villain respec: 34.62 MPH (1 run)
St Martial SF: 27.78 MPH (1 run)
Sharkhead SF: 25.45 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Lady Grey TF: 25.35 MPH (1 run)
3rd hero respec: 21.74 MPH (1 run)
Synapse TF: 20.16 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
2nd hero respec: 18.1 MPH (1 run)
Silver Mantis SF: 17.5 MPH (1 run)
Positron TF: 17.12 MPH (avg of 2 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
Manticore TF: 16.98 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Sister Psyche TF: 16.20 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Hess TF: 15.53 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Imperious TF: 15.20 MPH (avg of 6 runs)
Numina TF: 13.61 MPH (1 run)
Citadel TF: 13.51 MPH (avg of 6 runs)
Mender Tesseract SF: 10.71 MPH (1 run)
Cap au Diable SF: 8.84 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
Katie TF: 8.24 MPH (avg of 2 runs)
Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 6.27 MPH (1 run)
Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 5.81 MPH (1 run)
Escaped! villain flashback: 4.39 MPH (avg of 3 runs)
RWZ raiding: 2.91 MPH (avg of 2 runs)