A bit after signing on last night, Hildy and Torchy accepted the call into a Kessa mission along with Zazi and T’Lauro. It was the “find the workers and the goo” Rikti mission, and it was all conning around 38. Which was fine, except that H/T are at 35, and there was only one SK slot.
Margie took that, and played the Woefully Underpowered Tanker, still surprisingly survivable. Most of the stuff was conning orange-red-purple to me, even SKed up by Zazi. Things went along smoothly for a bit with Kessa and Torchy alternating booms, but we discovered that if anything went wrong (e.g., two close mobs getting pulled in, or multiple portals opening, or other nastiness), it was a road straight to pavement chewing.
Eventually we realized we were going a bit slowly, and started to hunt for the victims. That still led to problems, as not everyone was stealthy, the Rikti have some high perceptions, and so every now and then someone would all of a sudden go orange-red-yellow-orange-black as they got a bit too close to the wrong group. Even with an added tank (Tankerbabe), we were still struggling and going down too easily.
As time was finally beginning to get low, Kessa called in various Alliance types to lend a hand, though they seemed to spend more time in RP and street fighting than, y’know, actually searching for the last victim?
With five minutes or so to go, Kessa called for everyone to ground on the rooftops (so to speak), while she unRSKed back up to 50 and did a run through of the city, trying to find the last guy (and possibly dragging serious aggro with her, which presumably is why everyone was to ground. We watched her sprint around the map, and with about 20 seconds left — “Found him.”
Everyone raced over, attacking as they arrived, but it was, alas, even with a boom (possibly unSKed), too late, and the mission failed.
Bleah
A couple of notes:
- I don’t boom that often when duoing, since it leaves Hildy alone to clean up any survivors. It was interesting using it more as a tactic. It was also interesting that it remains far less effective than I’d hoped, even buffed (though the relative level probably played a role here).
- Invis. is a mixed blessing of a power (and, again, one that I haven’t gotten much use of since I took it at 35). On the one hand, it helped with scouting out the city (I spotted at least three of the workers and the drum). On the other hand, it’s still not proof against Rikti Drones, it sucks Endurance like a Hummer sucks gasoline, and it can seriously frell your attack plans if you forget that you have it (vs. Stealth) on. “Why can’t I boom?”
End of the day, Hildy leveled to 36 (during a double-boom attack), and I’m about a quarter pip from it and (despite two deaths) no debt. So all in all, not bad, and a good chance to play with others.