We're back. With a clone of Warren Worthington (Warren with white skin and metal wings in the blue and white Magneto created costume is not the real Warren... he's a bit of a weirdo) up for grabs, I'm back for more.
http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Angel1_zps8343a103.png
We have some new stuff to discuss, so let's start there:
Side Quest[]
Well, looky here. No lockboxes (so if you don't have Juggy, you are free to throw your hands in the air, rend your garments, pull your hair and totally freak out... just not on my blog... comments about that will be promptly removed). But, a side quest. That maybe anyone can do. Woo-Hoo.
So, let's talk about this. You need 125 nuggets, 5 feathers, and 5 rocks. The nuggets come from the PVP bonus roulette, and you get five a day from your first five PVP wins. Since there are 26 days to the tournament, and 5x 26 > 125, I don't think we'll worry about the nuggets.
Feathers and Rocks. I did a bit of code digging and worked out your odds on each daily spin:
- 20% Feather
- 20% Rock
- 20% Nugget
- 9% Five Challenge Points
- 8% Signet Ring
- 8% Goblin Serum
- 8% Asteroid Fragment
- 5% Sinister Scepter
- 2% 10 Gold
In the early going, the news is good. You have a 40% chance, each day, of landing a needed feather or rock. The problem is that we need 5 success of each, in 26 trials. At the start, our odds are 40% success, 60% failure. Now, I'm pretty decent with math, I can do a binomial distribution and all that, but figuring your odds here is a bit beyond my capability. Let me suggest that you have about a 20% chance of getting your 5 in each of the Feathers and Rocks considered on their own. You have about a 17% chance of pulling 10 or more feathers and rocks. I don't have the time (and it's been 9 years since my last stats class) to figure your odds of getting at least 5 of each.
That means, we might be spending some gold. If we value the item out, figure it would be a nice LE item, then we should be willing to go maybe 60 gold for it. That means we only need 4 successes, anything above which we can call a bonus. These things should not be easy, but this one feels like it'll be possible with some luck and probable with a bit of expenditure.
My man, Titeuf24, has created a very cool blog, that breaks this down in much more detail. Check it out: Will you need to spend gold to get the sheperd's staff?
The New Normal - Goals[]
Well, if you missed it, they've changed the awarding of prizes from a percentage based distribution to a score based distribution. I wholeheartedly approve. It makes setting your goals a lot more concrete and should make decisions much easier. I also approve because they set the bar for Ada about 25 points lower than any score I've ever put up in a tournament (aside from the Nightmare Season).
So, what goal this term? Well, it is crucially important for me to win at least Vibranium this go. The Nightmare Season was the last shot at an 8 Slot Blaster Suit, so it's Lab Coat or 5 more tournaments for me to get another crack. The suit doesn't look that great, even though Melt Armor is one of my favorite debuffs, but it has 8 slots for ISO and is the only color I don't have. So, yeah.
With the lower bar for Adamantium, I'm probably gonna play for that. But, if I don't get it, no biggie, right? I'm sure.
Team[]
I'll keep whatever team changes I make here. The answer to "What are you running" is whatever has the last date.
Day One[]
Still running Extras. It produced such solid results for me last go, and would have been an Adamantium team had I not gotten so hard hit in the last 10 minutes, so I don't feel the need to change. As a refresher, Extras is:
- Omega Sentinel
- Quicksilver
- Blue Suit, Scrapper
- Power Armor, Bruiser
It's called Extras because Omega and Quicksilver both take two a turn. With two Quick Action devices and a one round cooldown on Hotshot, the agent's moves are loosely scripted for the AI. The stuns from Hotshot essentially equal extra turns, and now, with Omega's stun move, there's more opportunity for stuns. She now has a solution for WW2 Bruiser Cap, which was a problem for her by herself previously.
Of course, they removed Omega's Stun move as promptly as they added it. It was massively OP to put two stuns, guaranteed out, on the first turn. So, with that removed, it's still the same old team.
Day Twelve[]
I haven't really changed anything. The meta evolves, my team stays the same. There is nothing that gives me trouble at this point, at least on offense, and the defensive results are still acceptable.
July 12th[]
Well, I'd messed around a bit and changed the suit from bruiser to infiltrator and back, and then went 49 hours winning two AFK matches. The patch of July 5th and people adopting to it has made Extras a harder team to run. I'm still searching, but in the interest of full disclosure, this is what I came up with/stole from my friend Chad (He suggested the Triggerman, and the bruiser PA)
- Emma Frost - p5 - Tactician (if you have inf, that might work even better... see below)
- Juggernaut
- Bruiser PA - Neurotrope - Scroll of Angolob - Warbringer Axe - Maggia Triggerman
I don't have a name for it, but it is BRUTACULAR. Everyone has the ability to make everyone else stronger. Agent through N-Trope, Juggernaut though his L9, Emma through her P5 proce and her L6. Two tools of buff removal. No real reliance on building buffs over turns, so scrolls don't bother much. Juggernaut, with the N-trope auto-crit is a OHKO Epic Overkill artist. I've hit people with lesser bonuses for 100K with his L2. In the first round. Maggia Triggerman has deadly crits. With auto crits, it's a team eraser. Emma's L9 is the stuff of legend already.
A word about this team. You have psychic (Emma) to deal with the damage resistant. You have physical to deal with the Psychic immune. You have ranged to deal with the melee resistant, you have melee to deal with the ranged resistant. Basically, you have avenues to damage anyone.
I'm not saying this is the team. But it wins very quickly, so I like it, in theory.
Results[]
As of 7/12/2013:
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| 125 / 125 | 5 / 5 | 8 / 5 |
In the early going yet, and I am seeing a tilt towards Caducites. Very frustrating to get a gold nugget on the roulette. Still, very early. Total gold cost is down from 100 (asuming 125 Nuggets earned for free) to 10, well within my comfort zone, but of course, I'd prefer to get it for free.
Now that I have 5 Caducites, the odds actually go against me. Instead of a 51% chance of getting an object I want, it's now down to 31% (Feather + 5 Battles + Gold). I was bound to get there, but I wanted a few more feathers before it happened.
Well, I hit it, with 2 extra caducites. When you have your feathers and caducites, you really want nuggets. One more nugget would speed acqusition. In fact, I could have it on 7/12 if I hit a nugget on Friday's spin. That said, the 10G remains the most attactive thing on the spinner, and the 5 Challenge points remains attractive, to me, as well.
Impatience got the better of me and I spent 1 gold to get a gold nugget (those things are AWESOME in PVE, BTW... I looked at using one... like a team Shwarma plus), so I could start my 8 hour research.