A newcomer to City of Heroes is bound to see some strange terminology flying about on the Broadcast and Help channels. After around level 30, many heroes develop an interest in something called a 'fast Katie'. No, it's not some legendary heroine of dubious virtue, nor a dietary supplement to burn calories. A Fast Katie is a high-speed run through a particular one of the game's Task Forces, polishing it off in minutes instead of hours. The 'Cap run' is the City of Villains equivalent, a super-quick trolley dash through the Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force in Cap Au Diable. Although it takes slightly longer than a Fast Katie - and yes, this has been used as an argument that the CoX developers are biased in favor of heroes, believe it or not - it can still be done in approximately 30 minutes.
So what's the point? Why sprint to the end of a Task Force instead of taking your time and playing it 'properly'?
It's this: many of the more desirable Invention Sets have pieces from different pools. Some drop from defeating enemies (pool A), some from completing missions (pool B), some from completing Trials (pool D) and some from completing Task Forces, the all-important Pool C. If you're missing the Pool C component from a given set, then unless you're willing to pay the asking price at the Auction House, the only way to get it is to run a Task Force and hope that it drops as your randomized reward.
However, not all Pool C recipes are equally desirable. As some players would argue, the issue with running a Task Force in the conventional way is that you might get unlucky. For example, you might complete a whole Task Force just to end up with a recipe from the Trap of the Hunter set, which most players would agree is not really worth the effort. On the other hand, you might get one of the sublime Numina's Convalescence +Recovery and +Regeneration recipes, or a Luck of the Gambler recipe that gives a global +7.5% increase to power recharge speed.
A Fast Katie is pretty easy to do. One person on the team must have unlocked Katie Hannon as a contact by playing through the Croatoa mission content. There are only four missions in the whole Task Force; the first one takes the time, as you have to defeat the archvillain Mary Macomber ten times to succeed. The next two can be passed by skipping to the end with Steath powers, and the final battle only needs one person to escort Katie's soul to the exit.
The Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force, which has six missions in total, requires more fighting but also has elements that can be 'stealthed'.
The Katie Hannon Task Force has also received considerable developer attention to make it less easily farmable. The battle with Mary Macomber can no longer be skipped, and no one character can claim a Pool C reward twice in four hours from the same Task Force.
We're not condoning farming, nor condemning it. This brief overview is intended to make new players familiar with conventions that established players know about, even if they don't use them. We should also point out that there may well be a revision coming to Pool C drops in the future, according to rumors on the forums. For now, it seems there will be Fast Katies going on on a regular basis over in Croatoa.
