Best Of

Yes but there have been plenty of constructive posts on all these issues so this isn't just mob mentality where you just have 20 people yelling "screw Kabam" with no context whatsoever. There have been loads of comments and threads with multiple paragraphs and write ups explaining why all these decisions suck, and it turns out most people seem to agree with the same things. I can totally see the occasional "game's ****" comment as mob mentality but the current state of the game is actually as bad as the comments say and there's a logical explanation behind a lot of these comments.

Don't get me wrong I completely agree with you on that one. But just saying that if I get stuck on those Epoch quests for a day or 5 (lol), I'll be doing these things to make sure I still get the daily event quests completed.

I think I'm gonna go with a full Deathless team. DSH and DT are R4, the rest are R3. Did a trial run last night without any boosts or health potions and got all the way to Mephisto without breaking a sweat!

My turn:

Not bad (statistical average is 1875).

Current totals:

Units: 24,844
BC: 50,849
Pace to reach 100k: 17,808
Projected end of year: 139,509

I don't usually (video) record arena crystal openings, but I do spin them out and record them in a spreadsheet. My first twelve (out of twenty) crystals in this batch were:

Since I have the Sigil my gold rewards are boosted, so those 99,000 gold drops are actually the lowest gold rewards possible. So I got the worst possible drop eight times in a row and then ten energy, which are technically worth something intrinsically but for me personally are not worth a lot since I'm always drowning in energy refills (I have 40 in overflow, and that's after burning a bunch to completely blitz out EQ (Classic and Elder) in one afternoon. Then three more gold drops, two of which were the lowest possible. This is why people often give up on the larger crystals. You have to be able to ride out sometimes very long stretches of bad luck. My last eight drops contained three unit pulls, two of which were the higher ones (1125 units each).

The longest drought of consecutive TB crystals without a unit drop is 30. I've never (so far) had a single batch of twenty end up with zero units, but I did have a batch in which the last 14 drops were unit-free, and then the next batch started with 16 drops without units. Also, those two batches each contained just one unit drop of 375 units each, which means those two batches combined for 750 units out of two million BC worth of crystals, which is also my worst two batch stretch. It can sometimes get bleak.

Meanwhile my best single batch of twenty TB crystals (aka one million BC) is 5250 units, and my best pair of batches is 7500 units. The highs can get very high, and the lows can get very low when it comes to the highest tier arena crystals. But my overall average of 1260 TB crystals over five years currently sits at 1886.9 per batch of twenty. I am pretty much solidly at the statistical calculated expected yield of 1875 units per batch.

If you like rollercoasters, TB crystals are for you. If not, then not. But regardless, in the long run you'll get the same thing as everyone else.

Without getting too deep in the weeds editorializing on the recent changes to crystals connected to ascension, while there's no way in heck I would do that, I might consider buying some in an extremely targeted basis. For example, it is tempting to try my luck with Dr. Strange. I always liked that champion and he was one of my favorite Marvel characters back in the day. His buff is good enough to make him worth chasing in my opinion, but this would be more for sentimental value than anything else.

This year specifically though, I'm trying to keep my eyes on the prize. I'm likely to return to a more balanced approach to budgeting units, but in 2026 the goal is to maximize my budget for banquet, without necessarily forcing myself to save everything for it exclusively.

The fact that Elder is coming out makes that especially interesting. There's reasons to believe that 2026 banquet will be particularly juicy for Elder players to promote the new title, and also attractive for players that cannot push the F2P path to Elder and will want to buy up the gap to get from Valiant to Elder. So we'll see.

I guess that was a bit confusing because it is a part of the currency conversion over to Essentia.

So at this point I just have to play the (really) long game and hope that I build up Loyalty which will only drip in now.

So I got to Abyss Collector during a practice run (I was bored) and not only was it itemless, I have Collector at exactly 1%. Very risky, especially using Absorbing Man and his burst damage. Here's a full write up.

Team:

Mister Sinister R4 (sig 20)

Serpent R4 (sig 200)

Absorbing Man R4 (sig 200)

Deathless She-Hulk R3 Unawakened

Onslaught R4 (sig 20)

Tip: Mister Sinister at R4 tanks damage and is constantly regening. Don't worry too much about not getting hit, in fact, I paused degens while the enemy WASN'T stunned and took combos to the face just to gain power and build up personal bleeds. You would have to be AFK for 3 minutes to actually die with Sinister.

Thing- Absorbing Man. Was faster than Sinister I feel. He counters unstoppable pretty well, although I've gotten a Mister Sinister solo before.

Omega Red- Mister Sinister. Pretty simple. Just watch Omegas death spores, as someone on here said before, Omegas SP2 is bugged and deals no damage being close to him.

Quake- Serpent. You need to constantly crit, Serpent works fine. Kind of risky with Mister Sinister, you'll get KOd if charges reach max.

Medusa- Absorbing Man. Easy solo, getting hit / armor breaks actually benefits Abs to regen constantly.

Mephisto- Mister Sinister. Again, the aura of incineration doesn't bother Sinister at R4. Easy fight

CMM- Absorbing Man. Pro tip- use the Molten Form pre-fight to gain more burst damage against CMM. In general try to stay in Molten Form for max damage with bursts.

Ghost- Serpent. Watch the power steal, don't push past SP2.

IMIW- Serpent. Watch the power steal again, especially the last 15%

Joe Fixit- D. She-Hulk. Simple fight.

Mordo- D. She-Hulk. Easy fight, use Whither so Mordo's Power Gain is neutralized.

VTD- Mister Sinister. Nothing crazy, simple Sinister rotation.

HTD- Mister Sinister. Exact same fight as above.

Hyperion- D. She-Hulk. So, naturally you think Whither would be great for this. NO! You want Hype to power gain while Unstoppable so he can launch specials and keep the Trauma debuffs. Parry, light attack 2 times, back off and let the power gain push him to his specials. The traumas should act like Taunts and have Hype throw specials to keep a natural D. She-Hulk cycle going anyways.

Champion- Absorbing Man. Easy fight, unstoppable goes away fast with Abs. Don't see why Sinister wouldn't solo this either.

Cyclops- Mister Sinister.

Loki- D. Shulk. Watch your power bar. Don't want it to stay at zero. Sinister would be useless in this fight. It's very tough to get to an SP1.

Aegon- Mister Sinister. Simple fight.

Invisible Woman- Mister Sinister. Slow fight, but easy. You have to manage her force field, her invisibility, and Sinister's degen launching at the right time.

Cull Obsidian- Mister Sinister. Easy fight.

Collector- I just threw everyone at him. Absorbing Man did most of the damage. If you're good at light intercepting just try to MLM to regen and you should tank most of the block damage and spam SP1s. Same thing for the last 10%. A lot of burst damage, very risky but I have Collector at 1% right now. Burst damage could've easily KOd the man and this all would've been for nothing... Life is good!

Also, for the record taking credit for the announcement is of course a joke, which most long-time forum readers would know. I was discussing this topic on the CCP server on Wednesday with interested parties, and that is what led me to the forum thread, and that led me to discussing it in both places. But the devs were almost certainly aware of that thread before I first referenced it, as well as related complaints about Essentia pricing that date from before that thread started.

Right there with ya, double Iron Doom lmfao

I don’t either, I’m just saying this isn’t necessarily mob mentality, the whole ascension situation is just balls in general.