Zero to Awesome final comments (reposted from Aug/Sept 2011)

JakHammer
Just read the whole thread. Thanks for a solid lesson. I pretty much always get something out of your posts.

Two thoughts to add.

1) Some have called you to task for the auction house vet power. With the amount of inf moving around in this project anyone can have a partial substitute (not good for in between missions) for trivial amounts of inf. I refer to the 10,000 inf for a one time use Market Teleport powers. Just remember to buy a new one every time you use it before you leave whichever Market you are at. I find it saves me a lot of time when I market, and it is useful during certain missions too.

2) I have been exploring the world of farming Tanks and Brutes for a couple of months. With NO knockback protection in Fiery Aura deciding on how many IO's to use was big. I settled on 1 for level 4 protection. On toons with high defense (example - FA Tank with +def power pools and IO build) a lot of the KB attacks will miss, and most of the rest will be stopped by level 4. If you know you will be, or find in mission that you are, facing a more serious knockback challenge - then base empowerment stations can give you a buff for 1 hour of addition +10 for a total of Lvl 14. Empowerment buffs will persist for the full hour even if you are defeated. I use them a lot when leveling, esp. +recharge and +recovery. I was warned that mere level 4 KB would be really bad in I trials but I found it perfectly acceptable even without the empowerment buff.

On toons with out significant defense, and/or without hover to minimize the effect, you may want more.

Jak

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plainguy
I was going to try this, got to level 13 solo and on teams. Then got an invite to a farm for prestige and got to level 31. Well there goes that idea. But I did try your invention idea and see how it works out. If it doesn't of course I will blame you.

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scott2hot006
Been following your thread for the past month. I enjoy these reads! My only question is how now that you have hit the 30 day mark, what is the total amount of time you spent on that character?

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Organica (me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by scott2hot006
Been following your thread for the past month.  I enjoy these reads!  My only question is how now that you have hit the 30 day mark, what is the total amount of time you spent on that character?

I guess I should go find a citizen to tell me.  ^_^  I'd guess somewhere between 2-4 hours a day... maybe just under 100 hours?



Aaaaaaand... survey says:  115 hours.

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Sivasiri
I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'

I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.

Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.

(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

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Eric Nelson
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sivasiri
I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'
I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.
Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.
(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

Well said! Nice 1st post!  :)

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Nihilii
Going to second that, that's an impressive first post and game start. Two weeks after I first joined, I think I was still trying to navigate the Hollows and had maybe 100k inf to my name.  :)

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Organica (me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sivasiri
I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'
I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.
Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.
(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

That's very cool!  I'm glad I was able to help in some way.

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eryq2
Yup, play 4 hours a day and you, too, can has awesome lootz.

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Sivasiri
Quote:

Originally Posted by eryq2
Yup, play 4 hours a day and you, too, can has awesome lootz.

While I won't dispute the fact that I'm on the internet more than I should be, the market just doesn't move quickly enough and the number of auction slots is just too small to realistically spend 4 hours a day on it. 20-30 minutes at the start and end of whatever playtime I had, and that's assuming my bids for materials came through while I was doing something else.

I mean, I guess I could roll a bunch of alts? But I've been doing it primarily on Sivasiri because I forget what I'm doing on which character and then I'm overriding my own bids and it's just a huge mess. I don't really need the added income.

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Netphenix5
Just a bit of necro-posting to say "thank you!" Two years I've been playing and I never really understood the secrets of getting rich of the market, but you definitely helped my latest character a LOT. Didn't get the two purples, but half a billion in two weeks is way better than anything I managed before - especially on my server.

So again, thanks for this very detailled, useful and entertaining read.  :)

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Organica (me)

That's very cool.  ^_^

As a sort of update, I started a Street Justice / Shield brute back in... when did that set come out?  September?  I designed the very most expensive build I could... four damage purple sets, a Panacea set, five LotG +7.5% rech, Glad Armor 3% Def, Miracle and Numina uniques, multiple billions required.  I hit 50 on my character in early November, and as of this last week I managed to purchase the Panacea unqiue and finish off my build.  ^_^  And I'm actually working on more modest builds for my just-hit-50-last-night claws/willpower brute, and also for a dark/dark brute who's currently level 44.  I can always find ways to spend money, so I have to keep making more.  ^_^

I've actually put together several very expensive builds like that in the last year -- nearly identical builds for my electric melee/shield scrapper in February and for a fire/shield scrapper in about June.  The point is, I can still remember when the most popular rare IOs were out of my price range, let alone purples/pvp IOs/uniques.  100 million influence was a fortune to me then.  ^_^  So I really think anyone can do this, if they want to.

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Erratic
As someone returned to CoH after 6 years, dabbling in the Invention system, and wondering how the world to make money, thank you for the guide.

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Hazian
I get a toon to 50, purp it out, get all its accolade powers and get all T4 incarnates in 30 days.  :)

Zero to Awesome Day 30 (reposted from Aug 31 2011)

Day 30

Last day of my experiment!

I checked the market early in the morning before work.  My 2nd KC triple also sold for 170 million, just as I'd hoped, and one of the Decimations had sold.

I'd also purchased the last 6 of the Decimation acc/dam/rech recipes, and the last of the acc/end/rech.  Also I'd picked up the rare and uncommon salvage needed to craft the acc/dam/rech recipes.

I was able to pick up the common salvage pretty easily and craft everything.

When I got home, a lot of stuff had sold.

I converted 50 merits and bought a third KC triple, and crafted and listed it for sale, along with the rest of the Decimation acc/dam/rech IOs that I hadn't been able to list this morning.

I ran a BAF and joined a Moonfire TF (on Shinobu Eden -- hit 48 and almost to 49 now).  I played a bit with my $1.99 3rd account CEBR claws/fire brute.  That was my evening, really, wasn't able to join a Lambda or an ITF.

By the time I was done in the evening, several of my Decimations had sold and also my third KC triple, again for 170 million.  Nice.  :D  (I'd also listed this for 158 million).

I had two more Decimation sales after this screenshot.  At the moment I have the two Eradication damage IOs for sale, the Thunderstrike, and I think three of the Decimation acc/end/rech IOs still for sale.  All of the acc/dam/rech sold already!

In the end I have T3 Destiny, Lore, and Judgment, but only T2 Interface and T1 Alpha.  I ran too many trials the last week and not enough regular content, so very few shard drops.

Although I benefited from from the two purple drops to the tune of a bit over a billion infamy, I finished with over a billion infamy anyway.  So I raised enough money even without the purples to pay for my build, although I might have had to wait a few more days to purchase those Enzymes.  A large part of the money I made in the last few days came from the sale of three Kinetic Combat triples that I bought with a-merits, but I also made nearly as much in the same time span just buying recipes, crafting them, and selling the IOs.

I still have 83 merits on hand as well.

For comparison, the CEBR brute that I've been working on since Aug 17th is up to nearly 900 million infamy from AE recipe rolls that I craft and sell (mostly  low level bronze rolls).  This character doesn't have a nice build yet, but I wanted to show that making money from AE tickets is also a fast way to earn cash.

Probably a balance of the three approaches would work best.  Either way, it's not hard to make money in this game.  ^_^

Zero to Awesome Day 29 (reposted from Aug 30 2011)

Day 29

Sold more stuff.  :D  Ran some trials.  Did my five tip missions, got a villain merit for that, and another for converting 50 merits.  I already had one from the day before, so I bought a KC triple and had 1 villain merit left over.

Because I sold so much stuff, I had little left for sale.  I needed to buy more recipes.

I wanted to give a very clear picture of how I made money the last two days.  That's why I waited a day to post this.

I placed bids Tuesday early evening for 10 Decimation acc/dam/rech at over 2 million inf each, and 10 Decimation acc/end/rech for 560,000 each.  These actually sell at similar prices -- about 10 to 15 million crafted -- despite the fact that the second recipe is much cheaper to come by.  But the second is also harder to sell, since there's always more available, so it's more of a squishy market I guess I'd say.  You can get 10-12 million or so, but not necessarily as quickly.

Anyway the recipes purchase much faster, as you can see by late in the evening after I've run my trials and stuff, I already have 9 of the cheap triples, and only four of the more expensive ones.  I've also bought all the salvage needed to craft the ten cheaper recipes (bought over several hours as I was running trials and tip missions).

I craft and listed all 9 of the Decimation dam/end/rech at 1 inf over 10 mil, which is being slightly optimistic.  The KC triple I listed at 158 million.  I listed the last one at this price, and it sold for 170 million, which is the price I was actually hoping for.

Zero to Awesome Day 27/28 and comments (reposted from Aug 28/29 2011)

Jetpack
FYI - Judgement doesn't have a level shift attached.

Alpha, Destiny and Lore only.

No level shift for Judgement and Interface.

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Organica (me)

Well, you can tell how much I pay attention to these things.  ^_^

But I can blow stuff up real good!

Anyway, a few level shifts are needed.  ^_^

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Rodion
Quote:

Originally Posted by Canine
You can still make a very effective toon using nothing but SO's.

The inf required to do that is frankly miniscule in the scale of things. Level up a toon, sell your salvage and recipe drops on the market (especially midlevel commons/uncommons), and I'd expect you to have no trouble affording the enhancements required to make an effective SO'd toon.
Actually, if you use level 30 common IOs, which are better than even con SOs, you will save millions by not having to upgrade your SOs at 32, 37, 42 and 47. Upgrading all your SOs at 42 and 47 will cost you many millions, and that's not even considering the hassle of having to do it.

The crafting costs for 30s are not that much more than buying SOs, so you will already be ahead of the game by level 38. The higher level SOs actually cost more than the crafting costs for 30s. You can usually pick up level 30 common recipes for peanuts, especially if you place bids ahead of time.

If you save your Tier 2 salvage when you start getting it, you'll have plenty by the time you hit level 27 and can start slotting 30s.

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Fulmens
That is, in fact, cheaper. Yes.

If you consider that the cost of level 50 SO's is about 5 million inf:
that's about 3 rare salvage
OR about 15 uncommon salvage
OR half a "decent drop", crafted.

Maybe I've been hanging out here too long, but I don't see the cost SO's, which is something like 15 million over your entire character's life, as a financial problem. Someone here had a standing offer, something like "Send me a tell and I'll email you 20 million, and you can afford to slot SO's 1-50."

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Organica (me)

Joined a BAF and a Lambda this morning.  On one I got a rare.  At this point, I've run more iTrials on AE Baby than any other toon of mine, but this was only my third non-common or uncommon -- I got a Very Rare early on, and a rare I think.  Anyway, I was able to craft my T3 Lore. :D  Working on T3 Destiny now, but I need another rare to accomplish it.

I also joined a friend's ITF last night and got 9 shards.  This was not enough to allow me to craft my T2, alpha, but it's a good start.  One of the same friends invited me to an ITF again today, just after I'd finished the iTrials.  We cleared the entire last map and I still only wound up with 4 more shards.  :p

Stuff sold overnight, enough to push me just over 500 million (especially after a couple of other things sold during the iTrials).  Knowing that Hami raids generally happen on the weekend, I wanted to get my last Enzyme bid in right away if I could, so as soon as I had the money I placed a bid for 527 million (last five included my second bid for 511 million, and 4 others that were higher 600 million on a couple I think, but one was only 525 million).

During the ITF more stuff sold:

I decided to up my Enzyme bid.  To my surprise, my bid was successful less than 2 minutes later.

After that I joined some other friends on a Citadel with Shinobu Eden.  By the time that was done, more stuff had sold:

So at this point my build is complete.  Price:  somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 billion, I think.  One billion of that came from my two purple drops, but given another 7-10 days I think I could raise another billion, especially now that I can use a-merits to buy IOs for sale.

I have 47.96% smashing/lethal defense, and if anyone on the team adds to that, then I'm usually in very good shape even in a swarm of Cimemorans.  One purple and I can tank a group long enough to kill them all.  :D  I have 70% global recharge, (the 140% showing includes hasten), and a lot of other nice bonuses and incarnate abilities.

I really like this character a lot.  I've played fire/kin troller and kin defender, and I've played a fire/fire blaster.  This seems like the best of both worlds.  I can buff the team, heal, and unleash massive damage.  I can turn my corruptor into a blaster, and a blaster into a god.  :D  I feel like I add a lot to any team.

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houtex
But... you missed SO much content.

 :p  :D

All that within a month? I'm guessing that planning is the key to the whole idea. My playstyle doesn't really... lend me to that idea.  :)

I'm impressed, nonetheless!

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Organica (me)

Ran 2 BAFs tonight.  Did not manage a Lambda, so only 1 Empyrian Merit on the day.  But I got a rare on the second run and crafted my T3 Destiny.  I'm now at T3 on Judgment, Lore, and Destiny, T2 on Interface and still stuck at T1 on Alpha.

Ran 5 tip missions + morality mission for a villain merit, and also converted 50 regular merits for a villain merit.  Bought a Kinetic Combat triple, crafted it, put it up for sale.
---

For the last couple of days I've just been running iTrials, ITFs, and trying to make money on the market.  Most notably, I used 2 villain merits to purchase a Kinetic Combat triple which sold for 170 million, exactly what I was hoping it would sell for.  Other than that I'm just selling random drops and whatever I decided to buy a 10 stack of.  Right now I'm trying to make money working the two Decimation triples.

As of this morning I'm near 500 million again.

In completely (well mostly) unrelated news, I chatted the other day with a person who reads these posts and recognized AE Baby.  She had a very funny, rambling first-person bio, very creative, about shooting her boyfriend for clipping his toenails at the table and shooting her lawyer.  Anyway it kind of reminded me of one of my own favorite bios, in general tone, not at all in detail, so I thought I'd post this:

A bio should be entertaining.  ^_^

(2012 sidenote:  The above character that I ran into with the entertaining bio was revealed to be game dev Tunnel Rat -- she let me know in my "90 Days to the Apocalypse" thread sometime in September or early October 2012.  Apparently she was excited to meet one of the Marketeers from the Market Forums, I was excited to know I'd had a conversation with one of the game devs, heh.)

---

Also, these two tidbids from trials last night:

(Speed lambda, leader decides as we're clearing courtyard that we're such a kickass group that we should try for the "no nades" badge.  Not everyone agrees, but leader says we'll still collect the grenades and acids, just not use the grenades unless it looks like we're running low on time.  Also, we don't wait to acid the doors since we want as much time as possible to take the AV down, and it'll take so long to do that we'll get the extra reward in the end anyway.)

Leader:  WE'RE GOING FOR THE BADGE SO DO NOT USE ANY GRENADES!
Leader:  PASS ALL GRENADES TO ME!
Leader:  Those with acids, close the doors right away then come back and buff up.
Leader:  PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY GRENADES!
Leader:  NO  NADES!  I REPEAT, NO NADES!
Player1:  ready.
Player2:  ready.
Leader:  Go!
*Maurauder has been pacified*
Player3:  Oh, you moron.

~~~~~

Then I joined a BAF:

Leader:  BAF LFM.
Annoying Player:  How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
Leader:  BAF LFM.
Annoying Player:  How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
Leader:  BAF LFM.
Annoying Player:  How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
*Annoying Player has joined team*
*queue comes up*
Annoying Player:  Add my friend.
Leader:  We're full.
*Annoying Player quits*

/em sighs.

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mauk2
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fulmens

To continue, I think of there being about three levels of IO'ing out:
1) Generics to replace SO's. Slightly to greatly more expensive, depending on how you plan ahead on your shopping; very similar results, only you'll never see a slot "go red" or lose efficiency with IO's.
2) Frankenslotting: grabbing a lot of cheap sets and using them like "mini-hami-os". Two set IOs can give you the rough equivalent of three SO's; I have a mini-guide in my sig if you want details.
3) "Real" set IO's- that is, IO's where you're slotting several of the same set in a given power, such that you get lots of set bonuses and [in some cases] dramatically improved performance. This can be expensive to unbelievably expensive [some builds cost literal billions] and there are potential traps, but you can get a LOT better performance if you do it right.
Feel free to ask questions, I love to see my own name up on the screen.

As a hardcore builder, I'd like to add a 4th level:

4) Unlimited MINMAX. Every power, IO, set bonus, and ipower is carefully chosen with an eye to the overall performance goal, with no other considerations. These toons are rare, but you'll see them designed in the scrapper forum pretty regularly. Things like perma-elude regen builds, that sort of thing. Those are the builds that run solo itf master runs...at +4.  :)
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j_thug
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica

Also, these two tidbids from trials last night:
*Maurauder has been pacified*
Player3: Oh, you moron.
/em sighs.

I don't know about the pacification.. but.. I laughed out loud at the other one.

I'll be rolling a toon on Vic soon, can't wait to see you around.. though I only play Heroes. =)

@JT1

Zero to Awesome Day 26 (reposted from Aug 27 2011)

Day 26 - Sat 8/27

I checked on stuff early Sat morning, and my 3rd Enzime purchase had been made.  :D

So now my goal is to raise another 100 million or two to purchase the last Enzyme.  All I need for my build at this point is 1 Enzyme and the last LotG 7.5% recharge, which I'll have by this afternoon/evening.

I ran a BAF and a Lambda this morning.  I managed to open up my Lore slot, and went with the... purple storm things from the Shadow Shard, whatever they're called.  I have no idea which pets are better than others, just having pets is a bonus and so far I've gone for whatever sounded cool that I hadn't tried on another character.  ^_^

I also crafted my Pyronic T3, so I have 1 level shift at least on trials.  I crafted T2 for Destiny Rebirth, and I broke down and used incarnate trial salvage to craft my Alpha T1, Cardiac I think.

Plus I bought some fancy boots and stuff with astral/empyrian merits.

I haven't actually posted my other outfits.  Among other things, I've purchased Halloween salvage from the market for the 5th costume slot and candy canes for the halos.  I placed the halo on my original costume, because AE Baby is sweet and innocent, yes?   :D

My second costume was similar to the first but more armored:

My fifth costume is my ITF costume:

And costumes 3 and 4 are my "most skin showing" and "least skin showing" outfits, but both have become my incarnate outfits.  I like having just the incarnate boots on the "less is more" outfit, and I'm kinda going all out on the other outfit:

Aside from getting that last Enzyme, I think my goal for the last few days of the month should be to get a T3 alpha, T3 Destiny, and T3 on either Lore or Interface as well.  I could say that would complete my journey from level 1 to awesome, reaching the level shifts.  ^_^

Zero to Awesome Day 25 (reposted from Aug 26 2011)

Day 25 - Friday 8/26

Friday was a very good day for me.  And no, not because I got any more purple drops.

First of all, a lot of stuff sold.  Mostly for not a lot of money, but I was getting rid of all my inventory that's in niches I don't want to be in, so I was having a fire sale, and people were buying.  That's good.  Even a little profit is a profit.

Second of all, I converted 50 merits and bought my third Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge.  I only need four for my build, and afterwards I ran 5 tip missions and my alignment mission so I earned a villain merit doing that.  Saturday afternoon I'll convert 50 more merits and I'll have my fourth LotG 7.5% recharge.  :D  With about 200 merits left and a few days of tips left to get more amerits and sell a couple of IOs for cash.

Third, I decided that with 1.8 billion on hand it was time to buy my Enzymes.  I didn't have a lot of hope, they were going for upwards of 600, 650, even 700 million.  I place a bid for two at 506 million, well below the last five, but it's the weekend so maybe Hami is being killed somewhere.  I also placed bids on Performance Shifter end/rech and Reactive Armor resist/rech, two IOs that I figure will sell better for me than the other stuff I've been peddling:

Then I joined some trials -- ultimately ran 3 Lambdas and one BAF.  I unlocked my Destiny and went Rebirth and slotted my T1, and crafted a T2 for Judgment Pyronic.

In the meantime more stuff sold, and to my surprise I bought one of my Enzymes:

Quite awesome!  I rebid on 2 Enzymes at 511 million just in case someone saw my previous bid, and also did more crafting/listing of stuff.

I went off to run a Sister Psyche with Shinobu Eden (hit 47), and when I checked before logging off at night, I'd sold a few more things, I'd bought some recipes, and my second Enzyme had been purchased.  Awesome!

Zero to Awesome Day 24 and comments (reposted from Aug 25 2011)

Day 24

As you can see, my drought of not selling stuff is over.  I even sold a couple of other Decimations that I didn't screenshot, but basically over the course of the day and evening I sold a lot of stuff.  Not always for as much money as I'd like, but a sale is a sale.  (And a couple were for much more than I'd listed, so it all balances out.)

Most importantly of course, was the purple.  ^_^  I haven't place a bid on my Enzymes yet, but there's hope that I can afford them now, thanks to my lucky break the other day.

*  Ran 2 BAFs and 1 Lamda.  I don't have my last two slots open yet, but give it time.  I crafted my Judgment Tier 2.

*  Ran 5 tip missions, and converted 50 merits again.

*  I continue to be interested by how people react to the name.  One person on two of the iTrials said that he's been reading these posts and following my progress.  He was on some of the earlier trials I wrote about.  I told him that I'd have to be careful to not screw up with him watching.  :D  But then I said something about continually targeting people on the team, that something was wrong.  Which was apparently a stupid thing to say, but I had no idea the prisoners could confuse you, all they do is run past you and never attack, and I'd never been confused like that before (aside from AE Baby I've run trials on two scrappers and a widow).  Also this was right after the servers had come back up after the Hotfix, so my first thought was "something really weird it going on, does it have anything to do with why they took the servers down?"

Someone made a comment, "Oh, the irony!"  Apparently because of my name and the "clueless question".  Because, you know, stupid name = stupid person.  (Actually, so far I haven't managed to troll too many idiots with my name -- most people tend to ignore your name unless they think it's particularly weird or cool.)

Finally I had someone tell me that they loved me and I'd won the internet, also apparently because of my name.  Heh.  (They may have read my bio too I suppose -- this was in the ski chalet.)

I bought some candy canes and purchased the halo aura.  I'm going to get the burning halo as well.

Other than that, I joined a speed Khan on my widow.  Please note:

I got the kill on four of five AVs, but the one that someone else killed, I got a purple drop -- my third of the week.  :D  And someone on my team said that they were still waiting for their first ever.  I can't complain, it's been very lucky for me this week.  Well, except for the raft of commons and uncommons on the itrials, I've got one rare and one very rare total so far.

Team was 2 defenders, 2 stalkers, a stone tank, and my widow, so probably not too surprising that I got a lot of kills, I was a significant part of team damage I think.  We finished in 22 minutes, and that included a quick bio and snack break before the AVs.

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ChaosAngelGeno
This has been a really entertaining and useful read to apply to builds I'm currently working on. Nicely done and thank you, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica
I got a purple drop -- my third of the week. 

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Skeeter
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica

Thanks. ^_^

* I continue to be interested by how people react to the name. One person on two of the iTrials said that he's been reading these posts and following my progress. He was on some of the earlier trials I wrote about. I told him that I'd have to be careful to not screw up with him watching.   But then I said something about continually targeting people on the team, that something was wrong. Which was apparently a stupid thing to say, but I had no idea the prisoners could confuse you, all they do is run past you and never attack, and I'd never been confused like that before (aside from AE Baby I've run trials on two scrappers and a widow). Also this was right after the servers had come back up after the Hotfix, so my first thought was "something really weird it going on, does it have anything to do with why they took the servers down?"

That was me! And still reading. Don't worry about the confuse thing, you did fine. Was playing my Ebil Dom, Freezelok.

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Organica (me)

Hey Freezelok.  ^_^

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChaosAngelGeno
This has been a really entertaining and useful read to apply to builds I'm currently working on. Nicely done and thank you, but...

Yeah, I have no explanation for 3 in one week.

The last time I had two in one day, I spent nearly a whole Saturday killing Cimemorans on the wall until I had 32 shards to craft my T4.  [I]That[/I] wasn't so much luck as it was the results of farming.  [I]This[/I] is just... me doing what I normally do, a few tip missions and a TF a night.  Random is random.

Zero to Awesome Day 23 and comments (reposted from Aug 24 2011)

The_Laughing_Man
An interesting and absorbing read. Thanks for taking the time to post, and grats on your 50!

I have been stuck in "bad" niches before, with my optimistic high priced stuff not shifting, so I routinely sell stuff 20-40% below the "last 5" rather than gambling on the price going up again. A lot of this is due to my DB/Elec Brute splatting through CEBR and picking up random recipes. I have no clue whether (lots of) random recipes > (not many) cherry picked niche recipes, but ultimately there's no difference (to me) between "more money than you'll ever need" and "lots more money than you'll ever need".

Hopefully this will help others.

-H

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Eric Nelson
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica
Day 22  It's not the first time I've gotten two purple drops in one day, but certainly the first time I got two such very nice drops at practically the same time, and with so little effort.

Wow, congrats on that (and the 50, of course), Organica!

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Felderburg
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica
It's just as easy to say I'm cheating because I play more hours a week than the average player.

I'd be curious to see some numbers. How many hours did it take to get to 50? And how much do you play a day?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zortel
Been nice reading this, I don't generally play the market, but some interesting tips to utilize!

I agree! I've worked up to 200 million now, mostly through rare recipes drops, and the occasional "buy low sell high" on stuff like that, but I haven't yet gone in depth playing around with the market. If I ever get the time to do so, this thread will have interesting things for me.

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Day 23

Here you see just about everything you need to know about how my day went.

1.  Converted 50 merits and bought my second Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge.

2.  Crafted and listed my two purple IOs.  The Armageddon sold instantly for 535 million.  I probably could have listed higher then, but I'm not going to complain about that.  ^_^  I did list them both fairly high -- you pretty much can not go wrong listing purple IOs at the high end of the sell range, someone will pay that price soon enough.

3.  I have 18 IOs for sale (17 in the picture) and NOTHING sold overnight or all day.  I pulled down a bunch of the Eradication damage IOs that I had ALREADY pulled down and relisted at a "more reasonable" price.  I think I just need to hand them out on the street corner or something.

The other things I have listed -- Eradication dam/rech, acc/rech, and Gift of the Ancient defense -- are selling for much higher than my list price, so it's probably only a matter of time before the ones listed even lower than mine sell out, and mine will sell.  I think.  Maybe.

(I crafted and listed a couple more random drops -- Doctored Wounds recharge (instant sale for something over 5 million) and a Scirocco's Dervish dam/rech I think.  And a Cleaving Blow, not sure why I crafted that one.)

I purchased my Ragnarok proc, crafted and slotted it.  It was more than I remember them going for but not so bad -- $75 million, buy it NAO price.

I check out Enzymes.  They are going for twice as much as a month ago.  I bought several of these in the Spring for 300 million, and a whole bunch in June and July for 350 million.  I have at least 5 in my base that I bought at that price.  But that doesn't help AE Baby, and they're currently selling for 500 to 700 million.  Bleah!  I need four of them too.

I ran 5 tip missions and burned down Croatoa again.  50 extra merits since it's my first time since coming back from rogue status.  First time on this character at all I think.

No purple drops during my tip missions.  Darn!  No shards either.  :(  I've only earned 3 shards since opening up my alpha slot, and I have Judgment and Interface slotted already.

Did not run any trail today.  Instead I did a Manticore with Shinobu Eden, got to 46, and then bought a Glad Armor 3% def IO from someone on the Market channel.  Put that in my base.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, but I had the money and he wanted to sell, and I like having an extra of those lying about just in case.  ^_^  My last one I used on Shinobu Eden, to try and push her smashing/lethal and energy/neg energy defense up to near-trial levels.

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Canine
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica
No purple drops during my tip missions. Darn! No shards either.   I've only earned 3 shards since opening up my alpha slot, and I have Judgment and Interface slotted already.

You may well already know this, but I may as well check.

Are you aware that you can make alpha boosts with Trial rewards? Scroll down in the recipe pane of the create tab of the incarnate window, and you'll see recipes using Biomorphic Goo's, Worn Spellbooks and so forth.

Unless of course, you're trying to be thematic and only make up your alpha boost with Shards and TF components, in which case, carry on

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Fulmens
Looks like you're getting caught on the downside of the 2XP slope. "Well, they were 50M, now they're selling for 30M, lemme list for 29..." "Now they're 22 million, lemme list for 20..." "Now they're 20. CRAP!"

I've got a lot of bad bets from 2XP that are going through that process currently. At least I can tell myself I'm working on my "burning inf through market fees" project.

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Organica (me)

Yeah, I'd rather use my itrial salvage for those slots, but we'll see.  ^_^

And yes I've noticed the slide Fulmens, but mostly on this one character.  On my normal marketers I leave things up for days or weeks, so I'm normally slow to notice slides like this and sometimes they don't affect me at all.  ^_^

One thing that did seem to rebound quite a bit for me were Decimations.  (Or Devastations -- whichever is the level 40 one.)  I'm not sure if prices on those are falling again, but I sold a bunch of one of the triples for 35 million each, that's much better than they had been selling.  :D

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j_thug
I'm just coming back to the game from years off and wanted to say this..ordeal..occurrence.. experiment.. has been awesome to read and helped me understand much of a game I left before there were even IO's.

Looking forward to (hopefully) not having to worry about inf.

Been making me think about posting one of these for myself as I figure out the game.

Jt

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Canine
Quote:

Originally Posted by j_thug
Looking forward to (hopefully) not having to worry about inf.

Minor threadjack, but I'm of the opinion that it's easier to end up not worrying about inf if you start off not worrying about inf.

You can still make a very effective toon using nothing but SO's.

The inf required to do that is frankly miniscule in the scale of things. Level up a toon, sell your salvage and recipe drops on the market (especially midlevel commons/uncommons), and I'd expect you to have no trouble affording the enhancements required to make an effective SO'd toon.

If you then decide you have to have all the shinies, then that's a different matter, but don't start off thinking that you HAVE to have the shinies or you'll be 'gimped'. The only 'gimped' things in the game are Dominatrix's minions...

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Canine
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica
Yeah, I'd rather use my itrial salvage for those slots, but we'll see. ^_^

Ah, OK.

Sorry if any offence was derived from the question, but I've seen a lot of 'veteran' players who were unaware that you could make alpha boosts from trial drops (and even more tankers who didn't know anything about Bruising), so I tend to ask first and feel stupid later on that subject  :)

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j_thug
Quote:
Originally Posted by Canine

You can still make a very effective toon using nothing but SO's.

Good to know, thanks.

JT

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Fulmens

To continue, I think of there being about three levels of IO'ing out:
1) Generics to replace SO's. Slightly to greatly more expensive, depending on how you plan ahead on your shopping; very similar results, only you'll never see a slot "go red" or lose efficiency with IO's.
2) Frankenslotting: grabbing a lot of cheap sets and using them like "mini-hami-os". Two set IOs can give you the rough equivalent of three SO's; I have a mini-guide in my sig if you want details.
3) "Real" set IO's- that is, IO's where you're slotting several of the same set in a given power, such that you get lots of set bonuses and [in some cases] dramatically improved performance. This can be expensive to unbelievably expensive [some builds cost literal billions] and there are potential traps, but you can get a LOT better performance if you do it right.
Feel free to ask questions, I love to see my own name up on the screen.


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FourSpeed
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fulmens

To continue, I think of there being about three levels of IO'ing out:
1) Generics to replace SO's. Slightly to greatly more expensive, depending on how you plan ahead on your shopping; very similar results, only you'll never see a slot "go red" or lose efficiency with IO's.
2) Frankenslotting: grabbing a lot of cheap sets and using them like "mini-hami-os". Two set IOs can give you the rough equivalent of three SO's; I have a mini-guide in my sig if you want details.
3) "Real" set IO's- that is, IO's where you're slotting several of the same set in a given power, such that you get lots of set bonuses and [in some cases] dramatically improved performance. This can be expensive to unbelievably expensive [some builds cost literal billions] and there are potential traps, but you can get a LOT better performance if you do it right.
Feel free to ask questions, I love to see my own name up on the screen. 

To those I'd add:

#4) Purple & PvP sets - these will raise performance even higher with correspondingly
larger bonuses, but an even larger still price tag in most cases.


Regards,
4

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Organica (me )

Yeah, and my build has only one relatively cheap purple but has those Hami-O Enzymes, which sell for similar prices.

Personally I start with generic IO's when leveling.  They're more expensive but you can keep the cost lower by crafting yourself and bidding overnight for the salvage, and they more than pay for themselves by not going red in the middle of a mission or TF.  And as others here have pointed out, if you need 3 heal IOs, buy the salvage to craft 6 and sell three of them.  Money recouped, and more!

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Crystalline
Hey, Organica, I know I'm late with the congratulations (work is really cutting into my forum time), but Congrats on 50!

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Organica (me)

Thanks.  ^_^

Zero to Awesome Day 22 (reposted from Aug 23 2011)

Day 22

I think we've agreed that whatever "results" I might get from my experiment here are skewed by my used of vet rewards, by my own knowledge of the market and the game, and by the fact that I gained a lot of levels during a double exp weekend.  But I'd still say that the overall point is just to show how to furnish a nice build on your own by the time you hit 50, or not much after.

Anyway, we can now add one more thing that is going to skew my results by quite a bit:

I ran 5 tip missions tonight, solo at -1/1, and got these two drops in successive missions.  It's not the first time I've gotten two purple drops in one day, but certainly the first time I got two such very [I]nice[/I] drops at practically the same time, and with so little effort.  Not only would I not expect anyone else to manage that -- I doubt I could manage it given another fifty or one hundred tries.  :eek:

But I'm not complaining.  ^_^

What I did tonight:

1.  Ran two BAFs and unlocked my Judgment slot (and slotted it with a T1).

2.  Picked up some Ascension armor and two emotes, swoon and collapse.  Those two are lots of fun, and I have swoon on my 2nd account and keep trying to use it on my first.  Now I can.  :D

3.  Ran the five tip missions.

4.  Converted 50 merits.  Sold 5 IOs on the market.

5.  Joined a Silver Mantis with friends.

I was frankly surprised at how many badges I have.  I know I grabbed all of the explore badges that I could -- or at least, all of the ones that would lead to merits.  I pretty much ignored history and other badges that didn't yield merits.  And I still haven't set foot inside an AE building.  But... over 500 badges?  (I'm at 511 after the Silver Mantis tonight).  That's kinda neat.  In fact, Mouse Police on Virtue is over 1,000 but I'm not sure how many other of my characters have over 500.

Just to compare, here's my new brute on my new account.  [I]All[/I] I've done with this character is AE and marketing:

Heh.

Zero to Awesome comments from Day 21

Arasnos
Thanks !

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Ukaserex
Try as I might, I can't keep myself from posting.

I'd like to encourage everyone to only point out errors that are just so brazen, to not do so would be an injustice to some unsuspecting new player who happens to come along.

I was once a "noob". In many ways, I still am. I left the game for a long time, and have come back. The folks that write these guides, for whatever reasons they may have, are doing a fine job of educating new players and returning players.

Myself, through some old school knowledge I had before, and some tips within the forums, I've turned a paltry 23 million (combined from 10 level 50s that I already had) into several billions.

I would like to do one of these - but I can't discount my knowledge of the game. I can choose to not claim specific vet powers. (and certainly, at lower levels the Sands of Mu and Nemesis Staff are very nice to have!)

Yet, only my experience is going to tell me that the tutorial is going to give me two 3rd tier inspirations that I can sell for enough to put some bids on underpriced recipes.

I applaud the efforts of the OP, and others who post their guides, and those who constructively correct the rest of us.

Have fun with your experiment. Fire/Kins are fun! At least my level 22 is so far.

Zero to Awesome Day 21 (reposted from Aug 22 2011)

Day 21

Aside from running 1 lambda (and opening up my Interface slot) all I did yesterday was marketing.  (I used the rest of my time to run five missions on Shinobu Eden -- 1 more hero tip mission and she can turn hero again, and then I think I'll be concentrating on running five tip missions a day with AE Baby for extra a-merits.)

I was very greedy over the DXP weekend and the several days following, and it didn't serve me well.  To start with, I'd already noted a couple of weeks ago that Eradication weren't selling well for me, but then they sold and I bought a bunch more, expecting the price to jump.  Which it did -- for maybe 24 hours at most.  I wound up with a lot of stuff listed very high, expecting prices to remain high or go higher, which didn't happen.

I had 10 Obliteration damage IOs listed for 20.1 million each.  At the time I listed them they were selling for 25 to 30 million.  However they didn't immediately sell -- the price dropped to about 20 million even.  Then, suddenly, seven sold overnight.  There was a brief price spike where the price was back up to 25 million again.  But after that three days passed with no sales.  When I checked the price last night they were going for 14 million at most, with nearly 200 for sale.  So I pulled down my Oblits and relisted them for... 9.1 or 10.1 million I think.  Anyway they all sold for 14 million within a couple of hours.

I had 10 Eradication damage IOs listed for 13.1 million and 14.1 million.  These had been selling for upwards of 20 million or more during the same brief price spike, but I think the price was already falling when I listed mine.  It continued to fall, to 10 million, where it's hovered with a lot of IOs for sale.  None of the 10 I listed had sold in several days, so I yanked them all last night.  I relisted some of them must lower -- 6.1 or 7.1 million I think.  Still none had sold by the time I logged off last night, and I can't check with maintinence this morning, so we'll see.

The other recipes I have ready to craft include 10 Eradication accuracy/rechage (not selling any better than the damage ones) and 10 damage/recharge, which are in much shorter supply.  As of last night there were only 9 for sale with prices above 20 million, so I'm reasonably certain I can sell those for a good profit.  But overall I just need to price what I have to move, since I'm obviously working niches that aren't actually great niches to be in.

Aside from that I crafted and sold a few random drops -- Doctored Wounds recharge, and two Blessing of the Zephyr travel speed/range IOs, and a Gaussian's of some kind.

Zero to Awesome comments from Day 20

Cinder_Flux
Gratz!!

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Aura_Familia
Gratz!!!!!

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FourSpeed
Gratz on L50!

I've enjoyed reading along during the adventure.


Cheers,
4

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Organica (me)

The big adventure now is to get enough money to finish the build.  I have 800 million, but I estimate I'll need 1.4 to 1.5 billion.  And I sold very little over the weekend.

What I need are 4 Enzymes, a Ragnarok proc (pretty cheap from what I remember) and 4 Luck of the Gambler +7.5% global recharges (which I'm buying with a-merits, I bought one tonight so I just need 3 more).

So the first thing I did tonight... well actually was to join a Lambda. But after that!  I pulled down everything I had for sale that wasn't selling and relisted it much lower.  Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.

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Hell_Jumper
I have been following your adventures since the very begining. It makes for good coffee reading every morning at work. Congratz on your 50!!! Wish I had the time or courage to start up one of these.

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Slauterhause
This is a very interesting read! As a longtime extremely casual player, I've learned quite a few things, and I've been entertained. Kudos!

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Arasnos
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hell_Jumper
It makes for good coffee reading every morning at work.

Ahahahah same !

Congratulations on Lvl 50, that was really interesting to read everyday.

Could you post your Mid's build ? I think that would help ...

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Organica (me)

(I had a build posted here -- it would be similar to the one posted earlier, not going to repost it for this archive blog post.)

Actually in this build I have Inertial Reduction at 49, but when I went to pick I grabbed Assault instead.

Zero to Awesome Day 20 (repsted from Aug 21 2011)

Day 20

Didn't have time to do much on Saturday.  Sunday I goofed around with my brute Shinobu Hime on my third account for a bit, got her up to 37 now, and also spent time getting my level 45 brute Shinobu Eden to rogue status (on my way back to being a hero and leader of Hero Force Alpha Assault again).

I've been marketing with my 3rd account brute and I have to say, AE is still not only the fastest way to level but also the fastest way to make money starting from zero.  In four days since I created the account I'm up to about 300 million with no outside help.

Meanwhile, AE Baby is not really making any money.  I have a bunch of Eradication damage IOs that won't sell -- or at least, won't sell for the price I want to sell them for.  It confuses me a bit because there are not a lot for sale and there are about three times that many people bidding, but eh.  I'm going to have to pull them down and try something different here soon, I have 10 days to come up with the cash I need for my last few IOs and Hami-Os.

Anyway, I played AE Baby today. I joined an ITF and hit 50 fairly early into it.

We had no real tank.  In fact, what we had were four defenders, a dom, a blaster, a crab, and me the fire/kin corr.  You want to know why 8 defenders (buffers) > 8 good soloers (scrappers/brutes/blasters etc.)?  Take a look at my numbers above -- capped at 400% damage bonus (which I was for nearly the entire task force) and smashing/lethal damage of over 150%.  Tank?  What's a tank?

Anyway having hit 50 I promptly ran my Mender Ramiel arc and opened up my Alpha slot.  I solo'd the whole thing.  Still at -1/1 mind you, but I only died once in the rikti Honoree/Holtz fight, and I was actually able to rez right there and finish off Holtz (Hero1 was already down).  I used my vet rez mind you, it has the advantage of making me invulnerable for a few moments.  But otherwise I could have run back from the Vanguard base and still finished it off.  ^_^

Point is, I can solo pretty well.

I joined a Lamda after that.  In the evening after running an ITF on my scrapper Trinkets and then a Cathedral of Pain (also on Trinkets), I went back for another incarnate trial.

Some guy who I know I've teamed with before was starting a trial.  I sent him a tell immediately saying I'd join.  I waited.  After two minutes he broadcast that he had room for six more.  I send a second tell.  I waited.  Finally, he said he was full -- never replying to my tells in any way.

Possibly he was busy and bombarded with tells, but also I wondered if he'd just decided to ignore me because of the name.  Anyway, I 1-starred him with notes explaining what had happened, just because I was annoyed.  Not like the guy had such a fantastic RP-worthy name himself.

I joined another BAF that was forming and we cleaned house, no escapees, AVs went down like clockwork.  I even was made leader of one of the teams, so no wondering if someone was reading "PL'd noob" into my silly name.  I stayed with that team for a second BAF (a little more ragged the 2nd time) and then for a Lamda.

All told I got two commons, and then on the last two trials a rare and a very rare.  Haven't unlocked anything yet but I'm close.

Plus I was finally able to claim the Ascension armor that the game has been bugging me about for three weeks.  :p

Zero to Awesome Day 18 (reposted from Aug 19 2011)

Day 18

This is a snapshot of what I had bought as of two days ago.

The LotG def/rech have been sitting there a while... they're not making a lot of money so I'm in no hurry to craft and sell them.

I'm pretty sure I already crafted and sold the Performance Shifters.  I can buy more of these at will for below 1 million a recipe and sell them for 7-12 million crafted.

All of the Eradications have filled in the last two days (I bid in stacks of 10 generally).  I'm trying to sell the Eradication damage IOs right now, and they're not moving.  But I think it's just a matter of time.  Tonight there were 24 for sale, and 10 of those are mine.  There were 61 people bidding.  The last five sales were all for 10 million, which is pretty low, the recipe was going for 20 million and more just five days ago.  But with so few for sale, I suspect someone will be willing to pay my price soon and then once you have a last 5 showing most people paying 15 or 20 million per IO, other people are more willing to bid that high themselves.  At least, that's my theory.  ^_^

I've crafted & sold most of the Oblits for 25 million each on average, although I still have 3 listed.

I crafted the Gift of the Ancients tonight and listed a few of them.  (That order had filled too -- I have 10 IOs now.)  Right now they're selling in the 20 million range.

I joined an ITF tonight and got to level 49 and within 2.5 bubbles of 50.  I should hit 50 the next time I play, but I want it to be on a TF or something and not something like a radio mission team.  We'll see what I can join tomorrow.

I also converted 50 more merits and got my Numina unique.  I ran the ITF before crafting and slotting it, and even with just the Miracle I noticed a dramatic improvement in how quickly my endurance bar ran down during battle.

This character is a lot of fun to play.  Having the smashing/lethal defense on an ITF is nice.  Not that I can't be easily debuffed, but we had several melee to draw aggro, there were only a few times where I was drawing aggro and I managed to stay on my feet for the time needed for someone else to take aggro or for the enemies to die. ^_^

Bear in mind that I've spend 80 million converting merits into villain merits over the last four days.  ^_^