Finished Grinding an Alt Account to Best of the Best last night.
May 12, 2022 12:02:21 GMT
andy_3_913, GruntKitterhand, and 7 more like this
Post by Ash on May 12, 2022 12:02:21 GMT
Album of my N7HQ/Unlocks and match count: imgur.com/a/rLQX3TJ
So in September of 2021 I started on a new account with the goal to show my journey from a fresh account to getting "Best of the Best". I streamed the entire thing on twitch (Capta1nAsh) and highlighted each match and posted it onto youtube. Above are screenshots and here is a link to my wrap-up/outro to the whole thing.
Also the entire of a series is in a playlist on youtube. So if anyone is curious to watch the journey. Here's the link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRv8Xy1bHgcuth3RKFv6eHIe3-O8J_aUL
Mistakes I made that could've reduced the number of matches.
Playing Vanilla Human Characters because there's no wave/extraction challenges and I can reach Biotic/Tech Mastery without them.
Should've taken the Talon and Eagle I started with and Smashed out the 200 waves and used credits to unlock characters.
Not Playing Gold/Plat sooner. More credits means I could've potentially unlocked weapons/characters that cover 2 challenges. 2 for 1's reduce matches. Also doing Gold/Plat would've meant Map Mastery done sooner.
Playing Bronze after Map Mastery being completed and getting enough unlocks needed. Would've been faster and resulted in less fail matches.
Fail matches, it happens but obviously 200 waves = 20 matches. Anything that ends before wave 11 ends up adding 1 more match need to be done.
Playing at bad times like middle of night (UK Time) meaning pugland was scarce. Not using discord communities (due to falling out) and not quickmatching (in fear of modders playing public lobbies) made for some empty lobbies and waiting around. Luckily twitch viewer would hop in and help me.
First match was bad. In terms of something to watch on youtube. There was a bug where my mouse would lose focus on Mass Effect 3. So game was unplayable and I quit out... on the first match. A terrible first episode to a series. Couple this issue with the length of the episode means that i doubt many people would come back for the 2nd episode.
Cheese that was applied.
N7 Mastery: So this challenge was somewhat ignored due to a bug where you'd promote everything quickly. This would send "tickets" to the challenge in-game on the server. This would glitch out in-game and wouldn't save all the promotions. However the "tickets" were already sent. Meaning you could get N7 Mastery with less than 60 Promotions. Video example here:
Buying Packs for XP to speed up levelling for N7 Mastery.
Buying Jumbo Equipment Packs as early as possible to max out Equipment to 255 allowing better loot/consumables from Spectre/Premium Packs.
You don't need to extract to complete challenges. At bare minimum another player can get lone survivor and that count's as a succesful extraction. So if you die on wave 11 with an extraction challenge character it isn't the end of the world.
Other Notes
N7HQ isn't accurate with the Match Count. It says 570 but by my count it was 572. I'm not sure how things work but it seems that any match where your credits vanish doesn't count as a match. Even though your waves are counted towards challenges, the match doesn't. Game is weird.
RNG had an effect on the order of things. So i had couple of characters at 100/200 that I dropped because I unlocked weapons after the fact. I got lucky with weapons in Reckoning so most of those characters were skipped. So no Warlord for Bloodpack and no Cabal for Commando.
Some Weapon Masteries do depend on getting at least 1 ultra rare to complete. So if your luck is in the shits this might take you a while.
Omni-bow does not count towards Melee damage points.
Theoretical Shortest Time: I calculate: 430 matches at minimum with all weapons unlocked. Will post a separate thing with the math.
Special Thanks to friends and twitch viewers that took pity on my and jumped into my matches to help.
N7Kurrupt, Scab, Messenger, BurningCherry, Meh, airgalaxie, alonso, Will, Cadaverific,
CelticCookie, CrazyBiker, ExLo0S,Metalmickee, KomiDragon, Molderca, killnova, SassaMFG,
Willtop, SylancerPrime, Crabs, PolishKamaro, ThaTrooper and Vormav.
So in September of 2021 I started on a new account with the goal to show my journey from a fresh account to getting "Best of the Best". I streamed the entire thing on twitch (Capta1nAsh) and highlighted each match and posted it onto youtube. Above are screenshots and here is a link to my wrap-up/outro to the whole thing.
Also the entire of a series is in a playlist on youtube. So if anyone is curious to watch the journey. Here's the link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRv8Xy1bHgcuth3RKFv6eHIe3-O8J_aUL
Mistakes I made that could've reduced the number of matches.
Playing Vanilla Human Characters because there's no wave/extraction challenges and I can reach Biotic/Tech Mastery without them.
Should've taken the Talon and Eagle I started with and Smashed out the 200 waves and used credits to unlock characters.
Not Playing Gold/Plat sooner. More credits means I could've potentially unlocked weapons/characters that cover 2 challenges. 2 for 1's reduce matches. Also doing Gold/Plat would've meant Map Mastery done sooner.
Playing Bronze after Map Mastery being completed and getting enough unlocks needed. Would've been faster and resulted in less fail matches.
Fail matches, it happens but obviously 200 waves = 20 matches. Anything that ends before wave 11 ends up adding 1 more match need to be done.
Playing at bad times like middle of night (UK Time) meaning pugland was scarce. Not using discord communities (due to falling out) and not quickmatching (in fear of modders playing public lobbies) made for some empty lobbies and waiting around. Luckily twitch viewer would hop in and help me.
First match was bad. In terms of something to watch on youtube. There was a bug where my mouse would lose focus on Mass Effect 3. So game was unplayable and I quit out... on the first match. A terrible first episode to a series. Couple this issue with the length of the episode means that i doubt many people would come back for the 2nd episode.
Cheese that was applied.
N7 Mastery: So this challenge was somewhat ignored due to a bug where you'd promote everything quickly. This would send "tickets" to the challenge in-game on the server. This would glitch out in-game and wouldn't save all the promotions. However the "tickets" were already sent. Meaning you could get N7 Mastery with less than 60 Promotions. Video example here:
Buying Packs for XP to speed up levelling for N7 Mastery.
Buying Jumbo Equipment Packs as early as possible to max out Equipment to 255 allowing better loot/consumables from Spectre/Premium Packs.
You don't need to extract to complete challenges. At bare minimum another player can get lone survivor and that count's as a succesful extraction. So if you die on wave 11 with an extraction challenge character it isn't the end of the world.
Other Notes
N7HQ isn't accurate with the Match Count. It says 570 but by my count it was 572. I'm not sure how things work but it seems that any match where your credits vanish doesn't count as a match. Even though your waves are counted towards challenges, the match doesn't. Game is weird.
RNG had an effect on the order of things. So i had couple of characters at 100/200 that I dropped because I unlocked weapons after the fact. I got lucky with weapons in Reckoning so most of those characters were skipped. So no Warlord for Bloodpack and no Cabal for Commando.
Some Weapon Masteries do depend on getting at least 1 ultra rare to complete. So if your luck is in the shits this might take you a while.
Omni-bow does not count towards Melee damage points.
Theoretical Shortest Time: I calculate: 430 matches at minimum with all weapons unlocked. Will post a separate thing with the math.
Special Thanks to friends and twitch viewers that took pity on my and jumped into my matches to help.
N7Kurrupt, Scab, Messenger, BurningCherry, Meh, airgalaxie, alonso, Will, Cadaverific,
CelticCookie, CrazyBiker, ExLo0S,Metalmickee, KomiDragon, Molderca, killnova, SassaMFG,
Willtop, SylancerPrime, Crabs, PolishKamaro, ThaTrooper and Vormav.
Its never too late. LOL. 
, i blame my kids