Invasion Pictures, and A Litte Info

Okay. One picture of... Team 3.1? The front guy is the Circle mage we were supposed to "rescue" from the Scrapyarders, who are, by the way, my current least favorite group. "Rescue" is in quotes because even though we freed them from the Scrapyarders guarding them, it didn't matter if they immediately died or not. And they did. Except for this last guy, only because he didn't have to fight anything. While we were there. We left him in the cave. That's Keen Havoc and the Tokyo Trio plus one, and Will's Boys. Out of the shot are Will and Schlachtfeld (and yeah, I had to go to Mason's blog to see how to spell that. German is not a language I'm familiar with.)

In the revamped RWZ, there are "pylons" that have popped up. First of all, don't get close on your own. They are perfectly capable of one-shotting. And they've got *range* There are... eighteen? in the zone. Once all are destroyed, the shields on the mothership will drop. The pylons will reappear after a certain amount of time, so the only way this is accomplished is with multiple teams taking down the pylons.

Once all the plyons are destroyed and the shields drop, welcome to the most chaotic Hami raid you've ever been on. There are TONS of Rikti on the ship. Teams will head toward the center of the ship, hopefully after planting at least one bomb per team. Bombs can be placed in the "duct work" of the ship by destroying "door" placed around the outside of the ship. Once you plant a bomb, RUN. They explode, you know. At least three bombs must be placed to spawn the ship's security chief, who'll appear as a GM with a name I can't remember. Supposedly, once the GM is defeated, there will be access to the inside of the ship. This, however, didn't occur while I was there.

Of course, there's lots more Rikti activity than just in the RWZ. You must be at least level 35 for RWZ, anyway. I saw level 54's on the ship itself. And given that Blaze cycled through over 400k in debt there, I recommend taking a 50, or at the very least a character you don't expect to level quickly. Expect debt.

This is an Invasion in Peregrine Island, while the Rikti were teleporting in. There was some lag during this, but nothing like the first night. I don't know if this was due to the time of day (late afternoon/early evening), that it was a high level zone, or that two days have given the shiny time to wear off, and there just aren't as many people out and about.

Blaze in the center of an Invasion. The nifty new shield graphics still entertain me. Also, the only good monkeys are dead monkeys. (Please, save the PETA warnings. PETA doesn't care about Rikti monkeys.)

A slightly less chaotic phase of the battle. New shields, some crazy invention set wings, and dead monkeys.

Blaze posing with new friends in the RWZ. The guy in the purple on the left is a Vanguard Soldier. The guy on the right is a Vanguard Wizard. (*watches as Vagz drools.)

Which brings up another important point. Some of the Vanguard costume pieces and some other things (which I haven't investigated much yet) are available to players. You can buy these things with Merits. Merits are earned through Vanguard by fighting Rikti. Merits will occasionally drop fighting Rikti during the Invasion cycles. However, EVERY Rikti defeated while on the Mothership will drop a Merit.

VERY IMPORTANT: You must do the first set of Levantera's missions until you get the "Member of Vanguard" badge before you are eligible for Merits.

My first run on the mothership, I must have missed out on hundreds of Merits. After we were teleported off of the ship when the raid failed-- after the GM appeared and resulted in the repeated of deaths of dozens of heroes-- I ran back and did the missions. It's mostly running around and talking to NPCS, and one Defeat 10 Rikti. Very quick.

So I10's... okay. I guess. I'm happier with I10 than I9, at least. The Lady Grey TaskForce does interest me more than most of the other TF's. And repeatable missions in the RWZ make me much happier than repeatable missions in the Shadow Shard. Costume pieces make me happy. No, not inventable wings or boots. There are 2 new costume pieces available that aren't armor. I have one character who might be interested in the Vanguard armor, and she's level 27, and likely to stay there for a good while. So, costume-wise, the issue is disappointing. Am I disappointed with the issue? No. Blaze and Blaster-Fyre will probably be spending a lot of my newly acquired free-time in the RWZ in the next few days. Did I hope for just a little more? Yep.