Ignatz the Insane

I generally agree with you. Mostly I was showing frustration with folks assigning motivations and/or feelings for me....kinda like this:

I have no idea going in whether I'll be useful or not. Also:

The most vehement voices in this thread don't even acknowledge this much. A couple even explicitly stated that if they have to suffer swinging at corpses, you do to. If I were to do they same as they and assign motivations and feelings, I'd say they were envious that my Scrapper took a different tunnel and didn't die. And if the team didn't suffer in any way and they still want me to be with the team even as a cheerleader then I'd say they're egomaniacs. People are complicated. There are certainly some who want to show off. Others are oblivious and perhaps don't pay attention to where the team is going-I like going left when leading the team or soloing for example. Still others would rather actually be fighting because they love the action while still being a part of a team setting with team banter with a team goal in mind(usually finishing a Task Force).

Now, see, this is exactly why I asked for clarification upthread. First, this is a rare occurance....the bragging I mean. Sure, I've seen it once or twice....in two friggin' years of playing. And like any negative experience, some folks will take that as evidence that every one of those lone wolves are jerks or selfish, whether the team is steamrolling or not. Thank you for proving my point while I was typing. Perhaps read the entire thread before coming in with fire and brimstone.

Maybe start over, because for me it has nothing to do with 'look at what I can do', and everything to do with 'ok, I'm punching corpses here'. From the perspective of Scrappers for me(which is what I often play). 1 .What kind of teams are you talking about? It might not be wise for the team to split during Posi 1 or 2, or Hollows missions, or +4 PI radios where 'everyone is welcome'. I'm less likely to veer off from the team in those situations because not only am I getting hits in, maybe I'm keeping guys off squishies. At that point, if team members are dying, then it's communication time. 'Hey Leroy, we're dying back here, mind givin' us a hand'? Although for my part I keep an eye on team health. I don't only play Scrappers. (you did mention low level teams in your second post) 2. Or are you talking about all content including a Citadel, Manticore, or Numina Task Force at +1 or +2? Or a level 38 mission team that's blasting mobs to smithereens in a few seconds with nary a scratch? I'm more likely to go find good trouble in these situations, and am almost certainly helping the team defeat mobs faster because I'm not swinging my mace at corpses. (you seemed to also imply all teams in your second post) Final thought for me: My character doesn't have to be standing next to your character to have fun in Team Chat.

Just to be clear...you're saying if you're on a team that's corpse blasting and you decide to go on your own to avoid corpse blasting, you're using the team and being selfish? Does that include mid to high level Task Forces? If I see a steamrolling team and wasting attacks on a scrapper, I'll hang back for a spawn and gauge how the rest of the team does. If the mob is obliterated without me, yea, I'm gonna go another direction on some Task Forces, especially kill alls. If I join a mission team I generally stay with the team and I don't stealth unless the Team Leader says something. But If I'm corpse blasting on a high level team I'll treat it like a Task Force. But hey, if you'd rather my leaving such a team so you can replace me with someone else for corpse blasting duty, go for it. Corpse blasting isn't fun for me.

I'll often put in lowball bids on popular IOs, say Luck of the Gambler Def/Recharge. Put in a few bids for just over 3 million(today for example I bought 4 of them for 3,000,100) and just relist them for something between 4.6-5 million. They're almost guaranteed to sell overnight. Quick easy profit, no converting needed. There are always folks who drop stuff on the market for peanuts, and even more folks too impatient for a lower bid to fill.

Uff da. I really appreciate all the work you've done Croax. While I may have a quibble here and there, there was nothing so egregious as to even comment. At the very least you provided valuable insight and a solid foundation for build ideas, all of which I found helpful. One of great things about this game is there are a number of ways to successfully build a character. Really helped me start playing Stalkers.

My first thought was just about any Scrapper. Love them. Tough, great damage, mez protection. After soloing a couple Sentinels I'd add them as well. Sure they don't do as much damage, but my Fire/Bio Sentinel was one my most enjoyable solo projects I've tried. Truly love that character.

I've always kinda disliked the terms 'dedicated healer' and 'dedicated tank' and 'dedicated controller', and so on. (Outside of some very specific content) Yes, there should be a priority to power picks and slotting. But this game is both forgiving and rewarding to players who decide to spread their powers and slots to be more 'jack of all trades' as you say.

Sorry as well for being off topic, but I really recommend folks interested in this topic watch The Wire. It's a complex and well researched look at drugs, crime, police policy, education, and politics in Baltimore.

Well, for what it's worth, here's my farming build. Maybe something like this for a more all purpose fire farmer, assuming I have Ageless. I spent awhile tinkering and it never fully satisfied. I'd rather have Radiation/Fire if I wanted it to do both.

I went with a different route....but it's expensive.

My next solo project is indeed gonna be redside! I've yet to take a Stalker to level 50 and I'm thinking of trying Dual Blades and either Energy Aura or Super Reflexes. I've never played Dual Blades.

I finished The Unity Plague story arc from Jenny Firkins for 43 Merits and joined a Manticore TF. Finished a Crey story arc, and ran a Moonfire Task Force. I'm at level 38 and have 824,345,174 Influence, with 35 things left to sell...4 IOs, 4 ATOs, 23 orange salvage, and 4 Unslotters. The latest recipes I bought were level 41 Reactive Defenses which I converted to Luck of the Gamblers. I still have several bids I'm leaving up...if they fill great, if someone overbids me fine. At this point this character is set. For my final build I can afford anything I want...Purples, Winter IOs, whatever. I'll easily reach a billion even without putting in more recipe bids. Some final thoughts: Absolutely read Yomo's thread A Meandering Path to a Billion Inf - The Market - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) Its entertaining and funny and full of great advice. For my own advice: Common rarely used yellow recipes are a cheap high volume option when your're starting out but they take a lot of converters to make money. Titanium Coating recipes are plentiful and have a high reward. I prefer to buy them at level 41 where they're guaranteed to convert to either Aegis or Unbreakable Guard. I made most of my money with these. Reactive Defenses recipes are great for low volume high reward converting. They generally go for about 500k(+orange salvage+crafting cost=1.2 million for level 41 recipes) and convert to Luck of the Gambler which sell for 5-7 million. There are many other recipe niches out there. This was simply the path this character took If a fool like me can take a character from nothing to nearly a billion in a week, anyone can. Edit: 25 of my Reactive Defenses recipes had filled when I logged in this morning. Maybe not as low volume as I thought. I cancelled the rest of my bids(I don't need any more money on this character) and converted to Luck of the Gambler IOs. When those sell I'll officially be over a billion.

This reminds me..I forgot to list the Experienced with my last haul....and I can't remember how many I got. Seven or eight? Something like that. Yea, I use 'em up when leveling. For the most part I break even after selling the ATOs/unslotters/boosters and use the rest(my SG base is full of the stuff so I just sell them now).

80 of my ATOs/Resist IOs sold overnight. I had a few remaining bids for Titanium Coating recipes that also mostly filled(I didn't bother putting in more bids last night). Crafted,converted, and listed. I'm at 376 Million Influence with 112 ATOs/IOs still for sale as well as 111 converters. Gonna switch to another high reward recipe.

Quick update. I finished Striga, crafted and converted the rest of my recipes and did a respec(I finished just shy of level 28). After selling all my SOs, I put in bids for various IO sets. I mostly kept to relatively cheap sets, Artillery, Thunderstrike, etc. When I started putting in bids I had a bit over 146 million. I didn't bother putting in bids for recipes...I mostly took Sunday off from playing. I also put in lowball bids for ATOs. When I logged in Monday, I'd bought 3 ATOs and all of IO sets. I did Ubelmann's arc from Laurie Pennington for 28 Merits(I also increased the difficulty to +1) and joined a Yin TF. I still had over 80 million Influence as well as about 65 million in bids so I decided to buy 6 Super Packs..see if I can grab some Merits and ATOs. The Blaster ATOs are scarce and expensive on the AH right now. I get the following from the Super Packs: Unslotter 20 Brain Storms 150 Merits 3 Experienced Defense Amplifer and 8 ATOs, none of which are Blaster. This is a good haul. (I want to caution folks who go this route. Buying Super Packs is risky, especially when you're only buying such a small number of them. I was confident I could absorb bad luck.) When I converted the ATOs, four I convert to Blaster ATOs, and 4 to high volume sellers(I stop converting when I hit one of the two). I'm still hoping to hit on a few more lowball bids before I respec again. I bought a few cheap yellows where I could find them, crafted converted and sold. Then I put in a bunch of bids for higher priced recipes. I'll see how it goes...these recipes are far more competitive. When I logged I had 156 million, 31 IOs for sale, and 72 recipe bids. Not bad. 56 of my recipes bids filled. I have enough Merits to convert all but 6 to my desired IO and put in some more bids for the same recipes. My lowball ATO bids haven't filled, but I'm not too worried. Next day, most of my IOs have sold and most of my bids have filled. One of my Blaster ATO lowballs purchased as well. Someone overbid me on the recipes I'm after, so I relisted at a slightly higher purchase price(not surprising, this is a popular recipe) and put in lowball bids for Kismet, Shield Wall, Reactive Defenses, Gladiator's Armor, and Steadfast Uniques. I also put in 3 lowball bids for Luck of the Gambler:Increased Global Recharge. I'm level 31, have a bit over 262 million Influence with 18 IOs still for sale, and 43 more recipes to craft and sell. Don't have more than a few minutes this morning. Will probably play in the evening. And... most of my bids fill. Between Monday night and Tuesday evening, I purchased 109 of my desired recipes. I'm constantly astonished just how many recipes...ones easily converted to high volume high reward IOs, people drop on the AH. No converters though so I joined a Synapse, but even with that Merit haul I have nearly a hundred recipes and 20 IOs to convert. I need converters. Lots of them. I could buy them, grab some more Super Packs, or just sit on these recipes for now and concentrate on fun stuff. I decided to roll the dice and buy 36 Super Packs. I got: 37 ATOs 3 Boosters 680 Brain Storms 48 converters 58 Unslotters 225 Merits I'll probably break even Influence wise...but the extra Merits helps. The Merits help a ton getting rid of inventory, but Yellow Salvage is stuck at silly prices. So I'll log and wait for my bids to fill. Hopefully the ATOs I got combined with the IOs I'm selling will total around 500 million tomorrow night. I'll log as usual in the morning(I usually have an hour or so to play then). I have about 119 million Influence, 130 IOs for sale, level 33, The recipe i targeted was Titanium Coating. Probably not a surprise for the pros here. I bought them at level 41. The recipes cost about 226k each and convert to either Aegis or Unbreakable Guard. If I see Aegis Resist/Recharge or Aegis Endurance/Recharge, I convert by type(I have a 50% chance of either Titanium Coating or Unbreakable Guard. If I have too many Resist/Recharge and End Reduction/Recharge Unbreakable Guards I convert again for three Merits in set.

If you buy at a certain level and convert, it automatically converts to a rare. Many of the IO sets have only a few sets, some of which have only two above a certain level...one yellow and one rare. The three examples I provided do this. Another good one is movement IOs. You're guaranteed to convert to rare with two merits. Then rare roulette. I like level 31 for most yellow recipes.

Just a quick build if I was doing just SOs. Probably not perfect. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1438&c=559&a=1118&f=HEX&dc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

Was your Fire Shield toggled on? Looking at Mids, Fire Resistance drops from 90% to 63% when Fire Shield isn't on.

Thanks Ukase, good stuff. I also wanna add that you're absolutely right about Accuracy being unneeded for that level 12 fight. If I remember correctly, one even level SO at level 20 is 90% to hit against +1 foes. I guess I always have that in mind when slotting at level 12(this is when I buy SOs when I use them), so it's a habit. Probably a bad one. I'd have been better off slotting an extra damage untll I got closer to level 20(or just added a slot to Hover and slotted the Kismet Unique if not increasing difficulty). One even level SO with the Kismet Unique is over the To Hit cap at levels 20+ against +1 mobs.

Wow..so every bid I put in yesterday filled, I now have 54 Enfeebled Operation recipes. All but one of my enhancements have sold, the Performance Shifter is still sitting there. Since I'm sitting in the University in Steel Canyon, I decided to do the IO tutorial starting with Admissions Officer Lenk and Montague Castanella's arc. Both are on the main floor of the University. The Montague arc is worth 13 Merits and access to the Midnighter's Club, well worth doing. At this point I'm a bar short of 14. I'm also running into endurance issues, so I slot End Reduction SOs in two of my attacks. I wanna to get to level 16 before forming Positron 1, so looking at my contact list I see I still have Rick Davies in Atlas, as well as several detectives. Davies introduces me to Athena Currie in Steel Canyon. After one mission she offers two more contacts, and has a story arc fighting Clockwork. For the first time I used the complete mission option, a defeat all clockwork. Two more missions and 22 Merits saving Lou's family from the Clockwork. Two bars shy of 17. I've been playing for about an hour now but it's Saturday! And, since I'm so close, I'm gonna talk to one of my new contacts and get to level 17 for a couple of my first IO purchases. One mission from Guy Denson and I'm level 17. Upgrading my SOs costs a bit over 560k. I have 35 Merits so before I start Positron, I convert my remaining IOs to clean up my inventory. I stop when I get things I know sell well for two million or more: Expedient Reinforcement, Decimation, Obliteration, Kinetic Combat, most damage procs, Touch of Death, Preventative Medicine, and all Resist or Defense IOs, although I tend to convert those to Unbreakable Guard and Luck of the Gambler respectively. I have one Converter left when I'm done(as well as 54 recipes and whatever other recipes have dropped). Several sell immediately and I have 32 million Influence. My first IO purchases are attuned Miracle:+Recovery and Performance Shifter:Chance for +Endurance. They don't have to be attuned of course, but I'm neurotic. So they must be. For me. Costs me 7.5 million for buy it now prices. Several of my listed IOs have sold and I still have a bit over 49 million. Someone advertised for Positron 2 when I was on my way so I join that group. It's not a speed group and a couple members are obviously new, so it takes a bit over an hour. Fortunately most members were a patient and fun group and I got 5 levels. Decisions to make...do I upgrade my SOs again or respec and buy some IO sets or generic IOs. I wanna slot Thunderstrikes in my ranged attacks, but can't until 27. I think I'm gonna stick with SOs for now, costs 737k to upgrade. I ran a Positron 1 and call it a day. I might log in later tonight. I played about 2.5 hours. Decided to play a bit more...I like this character. I contemplated running a Synapse and opted instead for Striga. Good arcs for rewards and Merits plus I can teleport directly to the first contact...love that feature. Heracles goes down whimpering(I'm a hover blaster so he wasn't dangerous) and 25 more Merits. I converted 18 recipes into sellable IOs and have 19 converters left. I also bought a portable workbench...worth every penny of that 10 million. I'm one bar shy of 25, have 51 million, and 16 IOs for sale and still have 36 recipes(plus a handful I've gotten as drops), but am stubbornly not going to buy converters. Really looking forward to level 27. If most of the IOs sell, I should have 80-90 million Influence...plenty for relatively cheap IO sets. At that point I can up the difficulty a bit(honestly, with the extra accuracy I have I think I could have done at least +1 with ease, but I'm more of a casual solo player most of the time, plus story arc completion xp is usually fantastic).

Edited because it was a foolish comment.

I don't think this is the case at all. If everyone did what I do....which is buy cheap yellow recipes and convert to expensive enhancements, the price of the recipes would go up but the price of the enhancements would go down as the supply increased. Although I don't see this happening as there are plenty of players either unable or unwilling to do this.(FWIW I'm guessing the unwilling is a much larger percentage)