Sister Psyche's Oro arc for stalkers... 50 Merits an hour.

[Frostweaver]

I am sure a lot of people know this, but I thought I'd share. I have run this with just about every AT, solo, duo, and big teams. By far the fastest was solo stalker, run at +1/+0 for merits. Thus this was written from a Stalker's point of view. I started this thing at level 25, and run it a few times each couple of levels, and (without help) managed to get both full sets of the ATO's by level 40. I am still doing it at 44 for fun and merits, of course.

 

I am sure there are much better ways of getting merits with a full team, of course, but in the middle of the night, the teams are being picky and hating on stalkers, You don't feel like starting a team yourself or screwing around with idiot masterminds, and want to chill out soloing, it's perfect.

 

I prefer superjump/oro portal/occasional SG portal for hopping around the zones...I imagine it might be faster with teleport or ss, or longer with fly or prestige ninja run. My most successful speed runs were done using my BS/Bio stalker and I never had to pop a single inspiration (although popping a couple at Clamor usually speeds things up and prevents dropping into regen mode)

 

 

 

Sister Psyche's mission chain in Ouroboros.

 

mission 1- clear all freaks in sewers-5-10 minutes.

travel time to next mission. 3-5 minutes

Mission 2- sneak in and kill boss- you have to free brent and then go upstairs, kill the boss, and everyuthing else in the room. 3-5 minutes.

mission 3- take something to a contact. very fast, depending on travel power. I did it in less than a minute every time.

mission 4- kill sonic device and the guys around it. Kill Boss and his team. Takes less than 5 minutes, depending on the map, plus 1 minute getting to the train

mission 5- Like mission 4, except a different (harder) map. Maybe 6 minutes if you are pokey. It's on the monorail too, so no travel.

Mission 6- clear map. This is probably the longest mission in the whole series, and it might take ten minutes because it has that big 'water storage pools' room, a cell room, and it's totally council map. Also, if it's in IP, there's likely significant travel time. 10 minutes. Beat up screamer and Archon Turner, don't waste your time on the cell doors.

Stop off to make sushi. 45 minutes tops. Don't try to do it yourself, you aren't an ill/rad perma-Pa Troller.

Mission 7- Talk to another faceless (and Very Fat!) contact back in Talos. If your last mission was outside of Talos, use ouroportal. the contact is like 300 feet away. Bear in mind the council will try to ambush you. The guy is standing next to the talos hospital.

Mission 8- another defeat all, minor difficulty. some glowies, 5-10 minutes tops. Unless you screw around killing the archons, they can turn into nightwolves, which add a few seconds to your kill time.

Go to the bathroom, get a glass of water, kiss your wife or put your kids to bed.

mission 9- defeat all again. This is probably in skyway. another excuse to use an ouro portal, although the monorail works too. You have to save two office workers and a dude named pine who follows you around only when you are NOT hidden. unhide, drag him to the elevators, hie again, clear next level, go back and get him, repeat. maybe 10-15 minutes

mission 10- Patrol talos island. depends on your speed. You get an ambush, but it's unlikely you will hang around at each spot waiting to meet it. 5-10 minutes.

mission ll- Bust Freak leader and crew- it's in an-ugh- Cave, but you can find him and kill him in like 45 seconds.

mission 12- disable a bomb barrel labeled 'sonic device'. The travel time is the hardest part. It's in the sewers, and I don't know about you but as a Stalker I LOVE sewers. take out pierece and his buddies, click barrel. I do it in about a minute and a half. YMMV

mission 13- Travel time, disable second device. same story as before. Run in, 'arrest' freak tank by poking him in the back with sharp objects, click barrel. 45 seconds.

mission 14- pop over and kick Clamor's butt. She can be quite hard if you fall asleep in between AS and the rest of your attack chain. (That actually happened to me once. she got me to half health before I snorted and realized she wasn't dead and had been beating on me for a few minutes). This mission may take as long as 15 minutes to complete... because the map is HUGE and there's a lot of hostages to find. But since it's sewers, and rather Linear, it should not challenge you very much and there's an extremely small chance of 'wandering looking for last clicky/hostage' going on.

So far, the first couple of hostages are almost always up on ramps and walkways, the sonic device has always been sitting in the middle of a corridor, and Clamor herself is always up on a ramp... but I cannot guarantee that it will always spawn this way, of course... although after nearly 30 missions it seems like the way to bet. Clamor uses radiation defense debuffs, so if you get surrounded you might get scared... just kill her fast.

 

Average run time- 51:26, at least according to ouroboros. shortest run time when I was really 'in the groove' was about 33 minutes. Longest time involved fighting Lusca in the middle, putting the kids to bed, having dinner, happy time with the wife for a while, and then playing the AH for a bit before finishing up.

 

 

 

 

[Frostweaver]

Quick note- duoing with a blaster or dominator speeds up the 'kill all' missions, but it slows down the 'kill boss' and 'click to win' missions unless they have stealth, it also turns Clamor into an AV, which makes her, with her rad debuffs, considerably more of a fight. In the end it evens out.

[Energy Aura]

What Primary/Secondary combo are you using?

[Frostweaver]

I mentioned it in the first paragraph, BS/Bio. level 45 now.

[DocMidknight]

  So I just tried this on my savage/shield stalker, while taking my time(1 hr 20 minutes) due to no travel powers outside of beast run and ran into no issues even at that time, 50 merits seems pretty good payoff. I think I'll be able to cut my time down when I pick up my travel power in the next level or so. Never thought about trying to run this TF for merits like that. Thanks for the heads up will have to run it every few days to get my merits so I can trick out my stalker.

[Lockpick]

Does Clamor spawn as an AV?  If so, are you able to beat an AV?  I have a level 27 BS/SD stalker, so wondering if I could beat an AV.

[Sovera]

I went and tried it on my Elec/SD stalker. Well, first thing I had to do was reduce everything to +2/x1 since I was being whittled down by +1/x3. Freakshows are just too much with the endurance drain and me only having in the 20s% defense. Defense rocks, but seriously, until we are in the 35%+ it's like fighting naked.

 

Otherwise it's like the OP said. Instead of soloing radio missions while semi AFK I was doing the missions. Getting XP same by killing mobs and mission bonus, but 50 merits at the end of it is certainly better than radio missions.

 

I won't be doing more though since we are capped at level 25. I just got Lightning Rod and not being able to use it is booooo!

[DocMidknight]

Does Clamor spawn as an AV?  If so, are you able to beat an AV?  I have a level 27 BS/SD stalker, so wondering if I could beat an AV.

 

  If you run it at +1/x1 she's an EB. I took my times based on no travel power and wasn't sure what I was getting myself into but 0 deaths and no issues. The original poster was right about TF being easy to finish solo with a stalker for sorta quick 50 merits

[Frostweaver]

Ran it today, invited a team, let them know this was a merit run.

 

After the first "Can we raise the difficulty?" questions to which I responded "No, this is a merit run, that means as fast as possible, +0/+0" We got through with minimal difficulties, no fatalities.

 

1 hour 20 minutes seems to be about average. Travel times seem to +- 10 minutes or so, a decently-balanced team speeds things up, and a stalker with assemble/TP friend speeds things up a LOT.

 

So, it's a bit slower with a team, but still highly doable and speedy, and how else are those poor defenders and constantly-faceplanting corrupters gonna get any merits?

[Frostweaver]

I went and tried it on my Elec/SD stalker. Well, first thing I had to do was reduce everything to +2/x1 since I was being whittled down by +1/x3. Freakshows are just too much with the endurance drain and me only having in the 20s% defense. Defense rocks, but seriously, until we are in the 35%+ it's like fighting naked.

 

Otherwise it's like the OP said. Instead of soloing radio missions while semi AFK I was doing the missions. Getting XP same by killing mobs and mission bonus, but 50 merits at the end of it is certainly better than radio missions.

 

I won't be doing more though since we are capped at level 25. I just got Lightning Rod and not being able to use it is booooo!

 

It's not particularly fun, but it's varied enough that it's not really boring either.

What it is, is a milk run when you can grab an hour away from the kids...to get those merits we all desperately need in order to get the ATO's, Catalysts, and junk we need in order to have REAL fun with a tweaked-out character.

 

I have supplied 2 other characters with full sets of ATO's doing this, and it's way less boring than opening gift packs and selling all their stuff again and again and again and again. Not to mention, it's an avenue to AFFORD buying gift packs and selling their stuff again and....ad infinatum.

 

I will keep hunting through Ouroboros to look for a higher-level milk run, but so far I haven't found many that don't require a lot more tweaking to solo, or have a far lower time/merit ratio. If I find one I am certainly going to let you guys know, though.

 

Remember though, that the 'gold standard' for fast merit runs is Katie TF... and while it's a bit faster, with better exp rewards, it's merit rewards are half of the time/merits this one is. and it is NOT soloable.

[Mr. Vee]

 

I won't be doing more though since we are capped at level 25. I just got Lightning Rod and not being able to use it is booooo!

 

Time to switch to Smoke and Mirrors for 12 merits in 10 minutes or so, prolly less with stalker.

[n00baka]

 

I won't be doing more though since we are capped at level 25. I just got Lightning Rod and not being able to use it is booooo!

 

Time to switch to Smoke and Mirrors for 12 merits in 10 minutes or so, prolly less with stalker.

 

My record on my Psy/SR Stalker for that is 5 min 35 sec, though I average about 8 minutes a run. My highest was 17 minutes, but I’d alt tabbed to the forums and sorta lost track of what I was doing. There’s only 26 enemies you HAVE to kill, and no travel time, so I totally see why this is the ideal “merits per hour” run. Can be absolutely boring though!

[Frostweaver]

I tried smoke and mirrors 3 times last night. The problem is, my times suffered a lot because I kept falling asleep.

[Mr. Vee]

Oh it's definitely dull. Can add a bit of seasoning by turning up to x8 and killing all the frost demons for your demonic accolade, but still boring.

[Sovera]

Tried it as well. Went fine, the last boss whipped my butt three times. Facing an EB with a measly 20% defense is definitely not a good idea since my insps run out before it is dead. A good moment to mourn the fact I don't have placate.

 

[Frostweaver]

Clamor beat you 3 times? What's your level/sets? You might have to clear out adds before hand, but if you cannot rip her to pieces within the time of a purple, something in your build is really off.

[Sovera]

No, the final EB in Smoke and Mirrors. Clamor went down easy compared.

[n00baka]

The good news is that the EB in Smoke and Mirrors can be down graded to a Boss. Makes the run much smoother. If a bit more dull.

[Frostweaver]

I am still trying to find decent higher-level alternative arcs for speedy merit gain.

'to save a soul' is actually really, really nice, at 62 merits for 1 hour twenty minutes... but I imagine that there might be some stalkers that have a problem with the constant sapping from killing carnies. Also waiting for illusionists to phase in requires patience.

"The eternal Nemesis' is not too bad either, as long as you can drop fakes before they go invulnerable.

 

However, fair warning for chain soloers... Unai Kemen's chain, "To save a thousand worlds", is a total NIGHTMARE for a stalker to solo... even the rewards (72 merits) aren't worth the hours of poking around in rocks looking for hidden scientists, the clear alls that are not clear alls, and the gigantic open-air defeat alls filled with tiny, almost invisible clockworks flying around like headless chickens.

I am never doing that shitshow solo stalker again. It might be worth it for a brute or something, or in a team, but solo stalker? just hours and hours of pure misery.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I’m not a merit hunter by nature, but being able to solo a TF is a game changer.  Was that ever enabled in Live or is this just a Homecoming thing?

[Lockpick]

Time to switch to Smoke and Mirrors for 12 merits in 10 minutes or so, prolly less with stalker.

 

Thank you for this suggestion!  I started doing this run for merits on my Stalker and am loving it.  I am probably averaging around 7:30 on my Stalker, so about 96 merits per hour.  This is great if I want to get XP and some merits, but have limited time.  I can run this twice in 15 minutes for 24 merits and logoff.  Or I can do one at the beginning of my gaming session and/or one at the end to make sure I leave my session with some merits.

 

I tracked some times over the last 3 days:

 

7:38

7:07

7:47

7:31

7:42

8:29

7:22

7:26

7:37

7:33

[Frostweaver]

Okay, if you want really boring and repetitive merits, do who shall die #1... 20 merits about every 8 minutes.

 

Of course, you ex to level 20, and it gets REALLY boring very very quickly, but hey, if you have a half an hour free, do 3-4 runs.

 

But I was looking for runs with some actual variety.

[Lockpick]

Okay, if you want really boring and repetitive merits, do who shall die #1... 20 merits about every 8 minutes.

 

Of course, you ex to level 20, and it gets REALLY boring very very quickly, but hey, if you have a half an hour free, do 3-4 runs.

 

But I was looking for runs with some actual variety.

 

I thought who shall die #1 only gives 20 merits the first time you do it and then every 7 days.  I think you only get 5 merits after you finish it the first time until the 7 day window expires.

[Mr. Vee]

Okay, if you want really boring and repetitive merits, do who shall die #1... 20 merits about every 8 minutes.

 

Of course, you ex to level 20, and it gets REALLY boring very very quickly, but hey, if you have a half an hour free, do 3-4 runs.

 

But I was looking for runs with some actual variety.

 

I thought who shall die #1 only gives 20 merits the first time you do it and then every 7 days.  I think you only get 5 merits after you finish it the first time until the 7 day window expires.

 

It does unless they changed it sometime in the last few months. I was getting cooldown like on live running it on my first HC toon.

[Hedgefund]

I haven't made a real stalker yet, but I did try S&M with a blaster today, was around 7.5ish.  I'll have to include that in my "stuff to do within a 10 minute timeframe".

 

I still find tips to be a good merit/time activity.  Just do them after you've acquired a few, certainly going tip hunting offsets the efficiency. Once you're familiar with them you know which ones to discard and which ones to run.