nom is without internet access for the time being, and my desire to grind levels has waned, so i am going to take a break from AC for a bit, once i figure out how to cancel my accounts.
my hope is that some of my friends will come back for the expansion pack, and i will be able to play with them. as it stands, i am the only person i know who plays regularly, and most of the people i run into in game are jerks, so meeting new buddies in game is not likely.
in the meantime, i'm going to play console games, i got GTA san andreas a while back, and i just got an xbox, so i am going to be playing those for a bit before i try to give AC another try.
my hope is that another game is on the horizon and i can play it with pandy and wels and nom and we can all play together and maybe start our own guild.
i am cautiously hopeful about Middle Earth Online. my hope is that MEO won't suck and that it won't be populated by the same wankers that dominate AC and [probably] the other games out there. i realize that there is a good chance that the game will be beautifully designes, but poorly engineered, and that being the flavor of the week MOG will mean it is overrun by the same jerks that bounce into and out of AC.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Monday, November 08, 2004
janus and n'eko and the BSD
janus was in need of a new hunting ground. after taking on and pwning the tuskers at the end of the gredaline consulate, i figured that the time had come to move up to the famous black spawn den.
janus is a martyr mage. she is a highly specialized mage with no war magic. this means that she is a great support mage, especially when supporting melees. she is however, very hard to hunt solo. she needs to hunt in dungeons where her enemies will be predictible, as opposed to in the open where everything is a surprise. so i have taken her to hunt tuskers. normally i *hate* tuskies, becuase they hit hard. but janus is a deeply troubled little girl who is in love with pain, so the place works out great for her.
so i was going to take nom's battle mage there. like all things involving nom and me, the easy way just didn't work. for some reason janus could not summon the BSD portal. the spell didn't fizzle, she just couldn't summon it. so i buffed n'eko, and janus, and we set out from AB to make the run to the BSD. and like all of our adventures, nom's toon died on the run. i play alone so much that i have acceted running as a legitimate tactic. if you are getting pounded on, you down a stamina potion and run like hell. this has saved my bacon so often, that all of my toons, including my slow mages, can outrun just about every monster in dereth.
nom does not subscribe to this school of thought. he fights everything to the death. when i am leading the way, it is most often to his death. this is not new to either of us, and i consider myself to be a master of corpse recovery. here are just a few of chris's tips for corpse recovery:
1) never use buffbots except to recover bods. the extra power and duration of those buffbot spells should be enough to power you thru any difficulties the mobs around your corpse will give you.
2) keep a robe to use as backup armor. a full set of level 7's on a robe won't make up for your normal armor, but should your death items fail you, and you arrive at the lifestone naked, a robe is light enough, and not likely to drop, so a robe may be what gets you to your corpse.
3) log off! sometimes if you are mobbed by half a dungeon, or the surrounding area, log off right there, wait a minute, and log back in. the critters that are not from the immediate vicinity will back off, and you will just have the immediate threat to deal with.
4) use another character to clear the spawn even if you don't have two accounts, you can use a different character, perhaps more powerful, better suited to face the threat around your corpses, or just with less vitae, to clear the spawn. as in tip #3, get to the corpse and log off, log the other toon in and run to the corpses and clear the spawn. as soon as the spawn is clear, log that toon off and log the other toon in. it's like drop muling, only with corpses.
4) use a shield to loot my life mage, naihanchi, carries a high AL buckler and a high meleeD katar to use while recovering his corpse. a set of buffs on the shield help his ability to survive melee attacks nicely. he also has helaing, but i will be doing away with it someday.
so typical of nom and me, i lead the way, he gets killed, and we have to set about picking up corpses. i made one pass and got killed, then another. the spawn was all high level grievers and olthoi, two things that janus is worthless against. since fighting was out of the question, i needed to run for it. she didn't have healing, so i couldn't do the shield thing and continue looting.
after two tries nom panicked, and called mom (opti silmara, our monarch). so opti and tahlisa helped us recover our corpses in a fellowship called "gilrs rescue the guys". i was not impressed seeing as how i can count the number of times i have needed someone's help getting a corpse back on one hand. but nom was pretty distressed, so i accepted the help. like with all corpse recoveries, the extra help got us the bods back in a matter of minutes and we got n'eko tied to the portal and i went to bed.
janus is a martyr mage. she is a highly specialized mage with no war magic. this means that she is a great support mage, especially when supporting melees. she is however, very hard to hunt solo. she needs to hunt in dungeons where her enemies will be predictible, as opposed to in the open where everything is a surprise. so i have taken her to hunt tuskers. normally i *hate* tuskies, becuase they hit hard. but janus is a deeply troubled little girl who is in love with pain, so the place works out great for her.
so i was going to take nom's battle mage there. like all things involving nom and me, the easy way just didn't work. for some reason janus could not summon the BSD portal. the spell didn't fizzle, she just couldn't summon it. so i buffed n'eko, and janus, and we set out from AB to make the run to the BSD. and like all of our adventures, nom's toon died on the run. i play alone so much that i have acceted running as a legitimate tactic. if you are getting pounded on, you down a stamina potion and run like hell. this has saved my bacon so often, that all of my toons, including my slow mages, can outrun just about every monster in dereth.
nom does not subscribe to this school of thought. he fights everything to the death. when i am leading the way, it is most often to his death. this is not new to either of us, and i consider myself to be a master of corpse recovery. here are just a few of chris's tips for corpse recovery:
1) never use buffbots except to recover bods. the extra power and duration of those buffbot spells should be enough to power you thru any difficulties the mobs around your corpse will give you.
2) keep a robe to use as backup armor. a full set of level 7's on a robe won't make up for your normal armor, but should your death items fail you, and you arrive at the lifestone naked, a robe is light enough, and not likely to drop, so a robe may be what gets you to your corpse.
3) log off! sometimes if you are mobbed by half a dungeon, or the surrounding area, log off right there, wait a minute, and log back in. the critters that are not from the immediate vicinity will back off, and you will just have the immediate threat to deal with.
4) use another character to clear the spawn even if you don't have two accounts, you can use a different character, perhaps more powerful, better suited to face the threat around your corpses, or just with less vitae, to clear the spawn. as in tip #3, get to the corpse and log off, log the other toon in and run to the corpses and clear the spawn. as soon as the spawn is clear, log that toon off and log the other toon in. it's like drop muling, only with corpses.
4) use a shield to loot my life mage, naihanchi, carries a high AL buckler and a high meleeD katar to use while recovering his corpse. a set of buffs on the shield help his ability to survive melee attacks nicely. he also has helaing, but i will be doing away with it someday.
so typical of nom and me, i lead the way, he gets killed, and we have to set about picking up corpses. i made one pass and got killed, then another. the spawn was all high level grievers and olthoi, two things that janus is worthless against. since fighting was out of the question, i needed to run for it. she didn't have healing, so i couldn't do the shield thing and continue looting.
after two tries nom panicked, and called mom (opti silmara, our monarch). so opti and tahlisa helped us recover our corpses in a fellowship called "gilrs rescue the guys". i was not impressed seeing as how i can count the number of times i have needed someone's help getting a corpse back on one hand. but nom was pretty distressed, so i accepted the help. like with all corpse recoveries, the extra help got us the bods back in a matter of minutes and we got n'eko tied to the portal and i went to bed.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
mr. moy on monkey island
it is no secret that i hate tuskers. i don't understand how people can say they are great for mages to fight because they hit *so* hard. nom's main, ki'lin has made 65th and he wants his patron to catch up with him (moy, the patron, is only 57th). i am eager for moy to make 60th since he will convert to sword, and be my life spec'd sword. that will put the count as follows:
3 mages (one life/manaC, one martyr and one opal mage)
2 swords (one lifespec, one grief tank)
2 axers (one tank and one OG)
1 archer (tank)
2 daggers (one 3school tank and one lifespec, both with lockpick)
1 macer (3school tank)
1 trade mule (quad spec)
so i decided to visit alphus lassel with opti, my monarch. i am not big on being helped to level, but i figure opti and nom will bug me about it until i give in. besides it will be a good opportunity to loot those freaking scrolls i need.
now that moy has gained some levels, i can re-adjust his starting stats. like with hwa, his OG cousin, i favored quickness and coordination over strength. now is the time to make them more extreme in their starting stats, by pulling points out of quickness and coordination and pulling them into strength.
moy and hwa are supposed to be subtly different. moy is a melee first, and a mage second while hwa is a mage first and a melee second. right now, both of them are axers, tho i am not exactly sure if i want hwa to remain such. if hunting hwa without meleeD proves to be too difficult, i may move him back to spear.
hwa relies on debuffs and vulns to take things down. he also uses drains to keep himself going while he tosses his imps/debuffs/vulns around. i am hoping that high life magic will make up for his lack of meleeD. the hope is that life protects and drains will keep him alive while he casts his laundry list of spells to knock something down to size. hwa fights like a mage, taking on one or two big things out in the open, while moy fights mobs in dungeons.
moy is a bit sturdier, thanks to meleeD mostly, though his life magic is weaker than hwa's. he tends to fight more like a melee, taking on mobs, and tossing imperils around to soften things up. he uses drains while casting, but then puts the shield up and never looks back.
both guys have the option of using life bolts to take targets down, should the need arise, or can play the role of healer/revitalizer as well.
taking the hit on quickness for moy will cause him to rely on his life magic more since his meleeD will go down a little. i still have the life/dagger project on the back burner. she will trade the damage that moy inflicts, for defensive ability, having a higher meleeD thanks to dagger being more stat friendly. she will be a more defensive version of the melee/mage hybrid.
3 mages (one life/manaC, one martyr and one opal mage)
2 swords (one lifespec, one grief tank)
2 axers (one tank and one OG)
1 archer (tank)
2 daggers (one 3school tank and one lifespec, both with lockpick)
1 macer (3school tank)
1 trade mule (quad spec)
so i decided to visit alphus lassel with opti, my monarch. i am not big on being helped to level, but i figure opti and nom will bug me about it until i give in. besides it will be a good opportunity to loot those freaking scrolls i need.
now that moy has gained some levels, i can re-adjust his starting stats. like with hwa, his OG cousin, i favored quickness and coordination over strength. now is the time to make them more extreme in their starting stats, by pulling points out of quickness and coordination and pulling them into strength.
moy and hwa are supposed to be subtly different. moy is a melee first, and a mage second while hwa is a mage first and a melee second. right now, both of them are axers, tho i am not exactly sure if i want hwa to remain such. if hunting hwa without meleeD proves to be too difficult, i may move him back to spear.
hwa relies on debuffs and vulns to take things down. he also uses drains to keep himself going while he tosses his imps/debuffs/vulns around. i am hoping that high life magic will make up for his lack of meleeD. the hope is that life protects and drains will keep him alive while he casts his laundry list of spells to knock something down to size. hwa fights like a mage, taking on one or two big things out in the open, while moy fights mobs in dungeons.
moy is a bit sturdier, thanks to meleeD mostly, though his life magic is weaker than hwa's. he tends to fight more like a melee, taking on mobs, and tossing imperils around to soften things up. he uses drains while casting, but then puts the shield up and never looks back.
both guys have the option of using life bolts to take targets down, should the need arise, or can play the role of healer/revitalizer as well.
taking the hit on quickness for moy will cause him to rely on his life magic more since his meleeD will go down a little. i still have the life/dagger project on the back burner. she will trade the damage that moy inflicts, for defensive ability, having a higher meleeD thanks to dagger being more stat friendly. she will be a more defensive version of the melee/mage hybrid.
Friday, October 22, 2004
after the odessy
so i used the plan detialed int he post below. i stopped after my second death. the first was on the run from nanto to lin. i managed to recover everything on that one. the second was on the run from al-jalima to zaikhal.
after buying a bunch of supplies, and dumping a lot of the stuff she was carrying onto kat, we set off with a couple of level 5 buffs to help her move faster, we set about dropping stuff off at the various craftsmen.
i am pleased to note that some of the appretices (the ones that ask for more advanced concotions) award 10,000 xp and tradenotes worth 15k.
i decided after the death on the way to lin that i should get her buffed for real. so after a trip to the marketplace we finished the run to lin. that went as well as could be expected. outside of aljalima i just happened to run into an iron golem kingpin. i yeilded to the temptation and took him on, since i just happened to be carrying and acid dagger was was buffed, she beat the kingpin after a pretty lengthy battle. she doesn't have healing, and had about 5 minutes left on her buffs when she died within earshot of zaikhal.
it was getting late, and most of what i dropped was gear from the kingpin and a platemail top that i am not too worried about losing.
there are two flaws in the plan thus far:
1) there are two legs of the trip that far that require you to run thru the wild. the runs are pretty short, but for a mule at 180% burden, with no defenses to speak of even when she is fully buffed, that is pretty dangerous.
2) the run would go a lot faster if it wasn't necessary to research and make everything as you went. i had to drop mule some hotsauce for tinka to make the flaming kimchi for one turn in. crafting the stuff as you go helps to reduce some of the boredom of watching tinka run in slow motion, but finding out you need hotsauce when your standing in front of the crafter will definitely slow you down.
it will go smoother once i get a supply of the materials need, and i would imagine being buffed from beginning to end will help it all take less time.
so the frist run has been a flop for the most part. i will finish it up so i have all the gear for the next run.
after buying a bunch of supplies, and dumping a lot of the stuff she was carrying onto kat, we set off with a couple of level 5 buffs to help her move faster, we set about dropping stuff off at the various craftsmen.
i am pleased to note that some of the appretices (the ones that ask for more advanced concotions) award 10,000 xp and tradenotes worth 15k.
i decided after the death on the way to lin that i should get her buffed for real. so after a trip to the marketplace we finished the run to lin. that went as well as could be expected. outside of aljalima i just happened to run into an iron golem kingpin. i yeilded to the temptation and took him on, since i just happened to be carrying and acid dagger was was buffed, she beat the kingpin after a pretty lengthy battle. she doesn't have healing, and had about 5 minutes left on her buffs when she died within earshot of zaikhal.
it was getting late, and most of what i dropped was gear from the kingpin and a platemail top that i am not too worried about losing.
there are two flaws in the plan thus far:
1) there are two legs of the trip that far that require you to run thru the wild. the runs are pretty short, but for a mule at 180% burden, with no defenses to speak of even when she is fully buffed, that is pretty dangerous.
2) the run would go a lot faster if it wasn't necessary to research and make everything as you went. i had to drop mule some hotsauce for tinka to make the flaming kimchi for one turn in. crafting the stuff as you go helps to reduce some of the boredom of watching tinka run in slow motion, but finding out you need hotsauce when your standing in front of the crafter will definitely slow you down.
it will go smoother once i get a supply of the materials need, and i would imagine being buffed from beginning to end will help it all take less time.
so the frist run has been a flop for the most part. i will finish it up so i have all the gear for the next run.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
tinka's odessy
so tinka has her little manwhore, katusa, pushing XP her way. this is nice, but kat is in a transitional period at the moment, having just hit 20th, and is in the middle of making the move from the explorer issue gear into level 4 jewelry and olhtoi gear. after that he will be ready to continue pushing. thanks to katusa's efforts, tink has made 30th level and now has enough credits to spec lockpick. this means that she will be specialized in every tradeskill available: alchemy, cooking, flethcing, and lockpick. she has all the tinker skills as well.
taking tinka anywere is a total pain thanks to her complete lack of combat abilities of *any* kind, and since she is my only mule, she is always *seriously* overburdened. i figured that since kat is down right now while i move jewelry and stuff his way, i would have him hold some stuff for his patron while she (and her buddy hwa who will actually kill the monsters) ran thru the skill spec dungeon.
i figured that as long as she is buffed and unburdened, she could also hit some of the new tradesman quests and pickup some XP in her various skills. there are tons of the apprentices and a few of the journeymen. thanks to tinka's leet treade skills she has no item magic, so she will be running the whole way :-)
after using maggies and acmaps to plan my very circular route, the goal is to hit a few apprentices and one journeyman, without the use of item magic or portal gems.
at the end we will have visited 5 apprentices and one journeyman for each of the trade skills, for a total of 75,000xp for each skill, and to earn tradenotes equal to 135,000py.
it starts in rithwic where tinka is lifestoned:
Rithwic Apprentice Fletcher (Frost Arrowheads) - 10.4N, 58.2E
Lytelthorpe portal 9.5N,59.9E
Lytelthorpe Apprentice Cook (Bowl of Chicken Noodle) - 0.7N, 51.2E
Holtburg portal 1.7N,49.9E
Holtburg Apprentice Alchemist (Frost Infusion) - 42.1N, 33.8E
40.8N x 34.0E Rithwic
shoushi portal (it's right next to the drop)
Shoushi Apprentice Alchemist (Acid Infusion) - 33.3S, 72.8E
Yanshi portal 35.0S,74.4E
Yanshi Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle of Acid Arrowheads) -10.4S, 46.4E
yaraq portal 12.1S,46.3E
Al-Arqas portal 22.8S,0.7W
Al-Arqas Apprentice Cook (Bowl of Mushroom Noodle) - 31.1S, 13.9E
Samsur portal 32.6S,14.4E
Samur Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle of Lightning Arrowheads) - 2.9S, 19.6E
take the mannekin foundty portal to nanto
Nanto Apprentice Cook (Bowl of Fish Noodle) - 52.5S, 82.0E
run SE to lin
Lin Apprentice Alchemist (Concentrated Frost Oil) - 54.4S, 73.5E
Khayyaban portal 54.9S,73.1E
Khayyaban Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle of Greater Acid Arrowheads) - 47.1S, 24.7E
back to lin portal 47.7S x 25.0W
tou-tou portal 54.0S,73.9E
Tou Tou Apprentice Cook (Flaming Kimchi) - 28.0S, 95.5E
uziz portal 28.2S,95.6E
Uziz Apprentice Cook (Spiced Apple Pie) - 25.7S, 28.3E
back to tou-tou again, 24.9S,28.3E
arwic portal 27.9S,95.8E
Arwic Apprentice Alchemist (Concentrated Lightning Oil) - 33.4N, 56.8E
al jalima portal 33.6N,57.1E
Zaikhal Apprentice Alchemist (Concentrated Bloodseeker Oil) - 13.9N, 0.1E
Danby's Outpost portal 16.7 N, 1.6 W
Danby's Outpost (fletcher) (23.4N, 28.8W) - Hollow Arrowshaft
allegaince recall to arwic
Mountain Shortcut at 34.9N 56.0E
banit road 42,4N, 60.5E
Bandit Castle (cook) (66.5N, 50.0E) - Fried Cinnamon Dough
allegaince recall to arwic and run to subway
qalabar portal
Qalaba'r (achemist) (74.3S, 19.3E) - Lead Lodestone
allegaince recall to arwic and run to subway
eastham portal
Eastham Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle Greater Frost Arrowheads) - 17.3N, 63.2E
looks easy, huh? we'll have to see.
taking tinka anywere is a total pain thanks to her complete lack of combat abilities of *any* kind, and since she is my only mule, she is always *seriously* overburdened. i figured that since kat is down right now while i move jewelry and stuff his way, i would have him hold some stuff for his patron while she (and her buddy hwa who will actually kill the monsters) ran thru the skill spec dungeon.
i figured that as long as she is buffed and unburdened, she could also hit some of the new tradesman quests and pickup some XP in her various skills. there are tons of the apprentices and a few of the journeymen. thanks to tinka's leet treade skills she has no item magic, so she will be running the whole way :-)
after using maggies and acmaps to plan my very circular route, the goal is to hit a few apprentices and one journeyman, without the use of item magic or portal gems.
at the end we will have visited 5 apprentices and one journeyman for each of the trade skills, for a total of 75,000xp for each skill, and to earn tradenotes equal to 135,000py.
it starts in rithwic where tinka is lifestoned:
Rithwic Apprentice Fletcher (Frost Arrowheads) - 10.4N, 58.2E
Lytelthorpe portal 9.5N,59.9E
Lytelthorpe Apprentice Cook (Bowl of Chicken Noodle) - 0.7N, 51.2E
Holtburg portal 1.7N,49.9E
Holtburg Apprentice Alchemist (Frost Infusion) - 42.1N, 33.8E
40.8N x 34.0E Rithwic
shoushi portal (it's right next to the drop)
Shoushi Apprentice Alchemist (Acid Infusion) - 33.3S, 72.8E
Yanshi portal 35.0S,74.4E
Yanshi Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle of Acid Arrowheads) -10.4S, 46.4E
yaraq portal 12.1S,46.3E
Al-Arqas portal 22.8S,0.7W
Al-Arqas Apprentice Cook (Bowl of Mushroom Noodle) - 31.1S, 13.9E
Samsur portal 32.6S,14.4E
Samur Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle of Lightning Arrowheads) - 2.9S, 19.6E
take the mannekin foundty portal to nanto
Nanto Apprentice Cook (Bowl of Fish Noodle) - 52.5S, 82.0E
run SE to lin
Lin Apprentice Alchemist (Concentrated Frost Oil) - 54.4S, 73.5E
Khayyaban portal 54.9S,73.1E
Khayyaban Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle of Greater Acid Arrowheads) - 47.1S, 24.7E
back to lin portal 47.7S x 25.0W
tou-tou portal 54.0S,73.9E
Tou Tou Apprentice Cook (Flaming Kimchi) - 28.0S, 95.5E
uziz portal 28.2S,95.6E
Uziz Apprentice Cook (Spiced Apple Pie) - 25.7S, 28.3E
back to tou-tou again, 24.9S,28.3E
arwic portal 27.9S,95.8E
Arwic Apprentice Alchemist (Concentrated Lightning Oil) - 33.4N, 56.8E
al jalima portal 33.6N,57.1E
Zaikhal Apprentice Alchemist (Concentrated Bloodseeker Oil) - 13.9N, 0.1E
Danby's Outpost portal 16.7 N, 1.6 W
Danby's Outpost (fletcher) (23.4N, 28.8W) - Hollow Arrowshaft
allegaince recall to arwic
Mountain Shortcut at 34.9N 56.0E
banit road 42,4N, 60.5E
Bandit Castle (cook) (66.5N, 50.0E) - Fried Cinnamon Dough
allegaince recall to arwic and run to subway
qalabar portal
Qalaba'r (achemist) (74.3S, 19.3E) - Lead Lodestone
allegaince recall to arwic and run to subway
eastham portal
Eastham Apprentice Fletcher (Bundle Greater Frost Arrowheads) - 17.3N, 63.2E
looks easy, huh? we'll have to see.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
the drama down below
under this post are two posts full of PK related drama. i have a simple solution to all of it.
ok, first off, i hate message boards in general, or at least boards with more than a hundred members. they are breeding grounds for trolls and flamers and other wastrels. in my internet youth i wasted time on usenet, but now i know better. i hang out on a couple of small community message boards and that is about the extent of it.
here is my little flame, which no one can reply to (i guess if you want you can email me):
why PK and PKL should be a bannable offense
PK and PK lite should be bannable offenses. the logic behind this is pretty simple if you take two givens: 1) if you violate the code of conduct you should be banned. and 2) the basic intent of the code of conduct is to stop people from being a jerk.
people who PK and PKL are jerks, being a jerk is essentially a COC violation, so PK'ers should be banned.
i know what you're saying, "chris, not everyone who PK's is a jerk."
my response to that is also simple: fooey
the people who PK/PKL that you think are not jerks simply have not been caught being jerks. this is because the only motivation to PK is to be a jerk. you can candy coat this by saying "it's more challenging" or "it's more fun" or "it's the only real challenge in the game" which is a a very polite way to say "i am a jerk".
if you go PK, or roll a character on a PK server, you are looking to fight other players, kill them, then either take their stuff and/or talk trash to them, which is being a jerk. if you fail and are killed you will pout about it, then get all your friends together and go looking for the person that wronged you and start some retarded little PK war, which is also being a jerk. if PK and PKL were bannable offenses, then the population of jerks will be decimated in a matter of days.
if you type /PKL, BAM! you're banned, if you log in to darktide, BOOM! Bannage. double click the altar bhalz and BING! you're outta here! that's right, leave that stuff in the game as bait for jerks. boost the PK abilities of all the PK weapons, add new quests for uber PK items that require you to be PK or PKL to complete them. the jerk population on all servers would be thinned in a matter of hours. leave PK in the game, hell work hard to improve it, and then punish people for doing it.
imagine a trip to the marketplace, or the lifestone in AB with no jerks talking about n00bs, whining about lag, or crying about being ganked. imagine message boards with no one trying to sell the gear they ganked from someone who thinks it is rightfully theirs. imagine everyday whining and drama reduced tenfold. imagine being a mage and not being begged for buffs by jerks who just want to duel. (hey jerks, if both of you have level 7 buffs, then fighting without them should be the same... why not fight without them?) imagine not having to stand in line for a buff bot for 30 minutes just so you can recover your corpse. the thought almost brings tears to my eyes.
ok, first off, i hate message boards in general, or at least boards with more than a hundred members. they are breeding grounds for trolls and flamers and other wastrels. in my internet youth i wasted time on usenet, but now i know better. i hang out on a couple of small community message boards and that is about the extent of it.
here is my little flame, which no one can reply to (i guess if you want you can email me):
why PK and PKL should be a bannable offense
PK and PK lite should be bannable offenses. the logic behind this is pretty simple if you take two givens: 1) if you violate the code of conduct you should be banned. and 2) the basic intent of the code of conduct is to stop people from being a jerk.
people who PK and PKL are jerks, being a jerk is essentially a COC violation, so PK'ers should be banned.
i know what you're saying, "chris, not everyone who PK's is a jerk."
my response to that is also simple: fooey
the people who PK/PKL that you think are not jerks simply have not been caught being jerks. this is because the only motivation to PK is to be a jerk. you can candy coat this by saying "it's more challenging" or "it's more fun" or "it's the only real challenge in the game" which is a a very polite way to say "i am a jerk".
if you go PK, or roll a character on a PK server, you are looking to fight other players, kill them, then either take their stuff and/or talk trash to them, which is being a jerk. if you fail and are killed you will pout about it, then get all your friends together and go looking for the person that wronged you and start some retarded little PK war, which is also being a jerk. if PK and PKL were bannable offenses, then the population of jerks will be decimated in a matter of days.
if you type /PKL, BAM! you're banned, if you log in to darktide, BOOM! Bannage. double click the altar bhalz and BING! you're outta here! that's right, leave that stuff in the game as bait for jerks. boost the PK abilities of all the PK weapons, add new quests for uber PK items that require you to be PK or PKL to complete them. the jerk population on all servers would be thinned in a matter of hours. leave PK in the game, hell work hard to improve it, and then punish people for doing it.
imagine a trip to the marketplace, or the lifestone in AB with no jerks talking about n00bs, whining about lag, or crying about being ganked. imagine message boards with no one trying to sell the gear they ganked from someone who thinks it is rightfully theirs. imagine everyday whining and drama reduced tenfold. imagine being a mage and not being begged for buffs by jerks who just want to duel. (hey jerks, if both of you have level 7 buffs, then fighting without them should be the same... why not fight without them?) imagine not having to stand in line for a buff bot for 30 minutes just so you can recover your corpse. the thought almost brings tears to my eyes.
PK drama
Asheron's Call Forums - BM 5 and PK
wow, ain't no drama like PK drama. like i have always said: pk should be a bannable offense.
wow, ain't no drama like PK drama. like i have always said: pk should be a bannable offense.
soloing janus
janus hope is my martyr mage. she is a real challenge to play since she is a "pure" mage (meaning she uses magic to kill) with no war magic.
she is next on my list to get to 50th. at 50th she will be able to spec magic defense. this would put her at being spec'd creature magic, life magic, mana conversion, and magic defense. i am not sure that is even possible, tho i figure that if a character can spec creature, life, and war (known as the CLaW mage) then a creature, life, and manaC mage can spec magicD as well (a template i like to call the G-CLaM). she also has lore, which i thought about specializing, and that may come in time :-)
the problem with her is that she is tricked out to be a support mage. she is everyone's best friend when group hunting or questing, but hunting her solo is difficult. she has to choose her enemies carefully. so far, her hunting ground has been the gredaline consulate. i am getting pretty tired of this place, since it was naihanchi's old hunting ground, and i would imagine will be kablammus's as well. i decided to try hunting her out in the open near qalabar since there are lots of undead there, which mages do well with.
well, she did ok against the level 60 stuff, but not so well against the 70+ stuff. part of the problem is her, part of the problem is me. i haven't played her in a while, i have been focusing on my melees and my hybrids, so my chain casting skills are not quite leet enough to play her with real effectiveness, and i have lost touch with some of the issues she faces when soloing.
her problem is that magic yield is not enough to knock the higher level monsters down to her level. she can't really afford for her hecatombs to be resisted, since her main attack hurts her as well as the monster. the yield problem i have solved by adding bafflement and feeblemind to the debuff lineup. this helps to knock their magic resistance down more than yeild alone, though getting all 3 landed on a stubborn monster can be particularly time consuming. she has the skill to cast level 6 buffs, but i am short of cash and scrolls to outfit her. once she is on 6's, her all around skills will go up, lessening the chance of enemies resisting her.
also, she has to get close to stuff in order to drain it, and she takes a long time to kill creatures, which means she ends up standing in the spawn, constantly fighting. she is fighting undead and shadows, who drain a lot. it's sad to say, but getting drained hurts her. it's sad because she uses all of her fluids to kill stuff, so when the enemy steals them with drains, it diminishes her effectiveness. ironically, she relies on drains to kill you would think that she would know how to resist them, and yet she doesn't.
that is where my problem comes in. her tactics in the open man she ends up tanking a few monsters on their spawn. not exactly helathy if you can't kill quickly enough to top off before the next spawn. she needs to go into every fight with her fluids maxed, and start the fight from a safe distance. i am not patient enough to top off between fights (a by product of playing melees) even when i do have time. i have also stopped carrying potions and stuff on her, stamina, health, and mana, a sort of "emergency reserve" for when the fluids get low and draining isn't possible. with the addition of potions to her arsenal should lessen the death from blowing all 3 tanks (health, stamina and mana).
so, with changes in strategy and loadout, and the much needed addition of patience and better buffs, janus's slow road to 50th will hopefully be a bit smoother.
she is next on my list to get to 50th. at 50th she will be able to spec magic defense. this would put her at being spec'd creature magic, life magic, mana conversion, and magic defense. i am not sure that is even possible, tho i figure that if a character can spec creature, life, and war (known as the CLaW mage) then a creature, life, and manaC mage can spec magicD as well (a template i like to call the G-CLaM). she also has lore, which i thought about specializing, and that may come in time :-)
the problem with her is that she is tricked out to be a support mage. she is everyone's best friend when group hunting or questing, but hunting her solo is difficult. she has to choose her enemies carefully. so far, her hunting ground has been the gredaline consulate. i am getting pretty tired of this place, since it was naihanchi's old hunting ground, and i would imagine will be kablammus's as well. i decided to try hunting her out in the open near qalabar since there are lots of undead there, which mages do well with.
well, she did ok against the level 60 stuff, but not so well against the 70+ stuff. part of the problem is her, part of the problem is me. i haven't played her in a while, i have been focusing on my melees and my hybrids, so my chain casting skills are not quite leet enough to play her with real effectiveness, and i have lost touch with some of the issues she faces when soloing.
her problem is that magic yield is not enough to knock the higher level monsters down to her level. she can't really afford for her hecatombs to be resisted, since her main attack hurts her as well as the monster. the yield problem i have solved by adding bafflement and feeblemind to the debuff lineup. this helps to knock their magic resistance down more than yeild alone, though getting all 3 landed on a stubborn monster can be particularly time consuming. she has the skill to cast level 6 buffs, but i am short of cash and scrolls to outfit her. once she is on 6's, her all around skills will go up, lessening the chance of enemies resisting her.
also, she has to get close to stuff in order to drain it, and she takes a long time to kill creatures, which means she ends up standing in the spawn, constantly fighting. she is fighting undead and shadows, who drain a lot. it's sad to say, but getting drained hurts her. it's sad because she uses all of her fluids to kill stuff, so when the enemy steals them with drains, it diminishes her effectiveness. ironically, she relies on drains to kill you would think that she would know how to resist them, and yet she doesn't.
that is where my problem comes in. her tactics in the open man she ends up tanking a few monsters on their spawn. not exactly helathy if you can't kill quickly enough to top off before the next spawn. she needs to go into every fight with her fluids maxed, and start the fight from a safe distance. i am not patient enough to top off between fights (a by product of playing melees) even when i do have time. i have also stopped carrying potions and stuff on her, stamina, health, and mana, a sort of "emergency reserve" for when the fluids get low and draining isn't possible. with the addition of potions to her arsenal should lessen the death from blowing all 3 tanks (health, stamina and mana).
so, with changes in strategy and loadout, and the much needed addition of patience and better buffs, janus's slow road to 50th will hopefully be a bit smoother.
Friday, October 15, 2004
teh grind
getting a toon to 40th level is fairly easy. it's time consuming, but it's not overly labourious. the leap from 40th to 50th is an absolute grind.
pyung ahn was my first real success with a melee toon. he began life as a 2 schooled UA with lore spec'd, and in time he became a 3 schooled tank. he is a real hoss, able to hunt in places my hybrids and mages far to tread. he was my orginal bug hunter, and in many ways is the real partiarch of the group, rather than naihanchi. everyone has benefitted from the loot he has extracted from piles of dead bugs.
while he is a foromidable UA, thanks to his recent mastery of level 5 buffs, he suffers from the same shortcomings that all UA's suffer: poor damage. i am one credit shy of training mace, and once i unspec UA, he will become a macer. he will get the almighty last credit on his 50th birthday, something like 12 million XP from now. at that point i am hoping to get him to 300 base in meleeD and mace. he just made 275 in each, so i am not sure if that will be enough.
my problem is that while i have the hunting grounds for 1-40 all worked out, i am not sure where to hunt pyung now. i could power level him at the phntos menace, but that is a real drag. i could keep pushng at OHN for another few million, he is able to make it to the second phase now, but i would rather solo someplace a little more appropriate to his level, only i don't really know where that place is.
once he hits 50th, and i can imbue a mace for him, pyung will set up shop in one of the bug dungeons on the plateau or perhaps a matron hive of some kind. at that point he'll move from the original bug basher, to the ultimate bug basher.
UPDATE: i yielded to the temptation and hit the phyntos menace for the final level. i feel dirty and ashamed, but he made 50th and will very soon be a macer :-)
pyung ahn was my first real success with a melee toon. he began life as a 2 schooled UA with lore spec'd, and in time he became a 3 schooled tank. he is a real hoss, able to hunt in places my hybrids and mages far to tread. he was my orginal bug hunter, and in many ways is the real partiarch of the group, rather than naihanchi. everyone has benefitted from the loot he has extracted from piles of dead bugs.
while he is a foromidable UA, thanks to his recent mastery of level 5 buffs, he suffers from the same shortcomings that all UA's suffer: poor damage. i am one credit shy of training mace, and once i unspec UA, he will become a macer. he will get the almighty last credit on his 50th birthday, something like 12 million XP from now. at that point i am hoping to get him to 300 base in meleeD and mace. he just made 275 in each, so i am not sure if that will be enough.
my problem is that while i have the hunting grounds for 1-40 all worked out, i am not sure where to hunt pyung now. i could power level him at the phntos menace, but that is a real drag. i could keep pushng at OHN for another few million, he is able to make it to the second phase now, but i would rather solo someplace a little more appropriate to his level, only i don't really know where that place is.
once he hits 50th, and i can imbue a mace for him, pyung will set up shop in one of the bug dungeons on the plateau or perhaps a matron hive of some kind. at that point he'll move from the original bug basher, to the ultimate bug basher.
UPDATE: i yielded to the temptation and hit the phyntos menace for the final level. i feel dirty and ashamed, but he made 50th and will very soon be a macer :-)
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
the letter to fist de yuma
i know you won't believe it, but i didn't intend for fist to publish my letter. (it's in the october 5th section). but he did cuz he's a helluva guy.
so anyway, he published my letter about not digging fellows with random strangers cuz i'm a big jerk, and yes i was kidding :-)
so if you are reading this after visiting fists site, i hope you enjoy reading about my misadvntures and don't get whiplash from my inability to stay on any one subject. most of this site really is tongue in cheek. the lack of spell checking and capitalization, copious use of leetspeek, and of course my off the cuff remarks about everything should be evidence that i don't take myself that seriously. i don't really hate anyone, nor do i think that pk-lite should be a bannable offense since there are one or two people who PK-lite who aren't insecure 14 year old wankers :-)
so anyway, he published my letter about not digging fellows with random strangers cuz i'm a big jerk, and yes i was kidding :-)
so if you are reading this after visiting fists site, i hope you enjoy reading about my misadvntures and don't get whiplash from my inability to stay on any one subject. most of this site really is tongue in cheek. the lack of spell checking and capitalization, copious use of leetspeek, and of course my off the cuff remarks about everything should be evidence that i don't take myself that seriously. i don't really hate anyone, nor do i think that pk-lite should be a bannable offense since there are one or two people who PK-lite who aren't insecure 14 year old wankers :-)
Monday, October 04, 2004
where do they come up with this stuff?
so i read on warcry about the revsion of the october letter to the players. they will be adding a skill and changing the way salvaging works, which is really cool.
they mentioned this balancing they did to counteract the games that people play to exploit the reward. i never would have thought to use the cooking skill to exploit a reward. who thinks this stuff up?
i am really all for balancing the game. i have had my gaming life seriously impacted by the things that turbine has had to do in order to counteract the shinannegans of macroers and the like and i have been hurt a few times. not being able to sell crafted items has hurt my cash flow, especially now that olthoi don't drop the same kinds of loot they used to drop.
i have a bunch of mages (two 3schoolers, three life hybrids, and three pure mages) that will all need level 6 spells very soon, and i am having issues getting the cash to buy them. see, i use buffs a lot, but they are all *MY* buffs. i actually cast my own buffs, level 3's or 4's or whatever the toon is able to cast, so life for my guys is pretty expensive between spells and comps. i am fine with this, i just need to find a good place to hunt for loot. as much as i hate the place, it's looking like the phyntos menace is a good place to hunt for it, at least until i can hunt a toon in a matron hive or the dires.
i also don't take many gifts from others. i have a couple of tinked items, tho not many, and i most of them have been tinked by my mule, tinka. i have powerleveled her a bit, it's true, and now i have a guy pushing XP her way, but i have never put her in an XP chain, nor have i combat macroed her. for a while, i did use her to robochef healing potions which i sold, and for all the effort i guess i ended up with two MMD notes for the trouble. i am not sure it was worth it, but the cash did get all my mages and hybrids at the time into level 5 spells. now there are quests and stuff to help level trade characters and make a little money, and katusa will also help level her, i think she is viable again as a character. this is an example of a good balance to taking something way.
all this is leading to why i don't like macroers or other cheaters: turbine has taken great strides to eliminate them, and sometimes those eliminations have hurt me. i have complained a bit about it, but in general i have lived with the changes. there is always talk of banning third party apps, and i think that that is where i may draw the line. i use magic alot because i don't have much luck with finding really nice items. the bulk of my charactes are mages because spells are easy to get and the only way to get ready access to a complete set of buffs, is to cast them on yourself. this is tedious, unless you use an app like nerfus buffus to do the buffing for you. i have put up with nerfus and decal breaking with each patch, and i will have to admit that for the last few months, life has been good.
if, in it's desperation to stop macroers and other cheaters, turbine does ban 3rd party apps like decal, then people like me who use those apps to take some of the tedium out of playing may be left out. i have to hunt in dungeons because the lands out in the open are full of very high level monsters. the hi level monsters are there cuz the everage toon is like 200th level, unlike me. so to get anywhere i just run like hell and hope i don't get killed. then i tie to the portal of the dungeon you are looking for and recall there until i outgrow the dungeon. this is how all my dudes hunt thanks to the outrageous level to the content in the outlands, which i am sure is in response to all the macroed toons running around complaining that there isn't any content that challenges them.
this is why i don't understand cheating... if you are going to cheat and max out, why bother playing? i know why they do it, becuse they want to be the biggest and the best. that's fine, be the best, but then why would you want the game to be remade to challenge you? if you maxed out in the shortest possible time, then move on, don't hang around an skew the balance for us real players. honestly, where do they come up with this stuff?
they mentioned this balancing they did to counteract the games that people play to exploit the reward. i never would have thought to use the cooking skill to exploit a reward. who thinks this stuff up?
i am really all for balancing the game. i have had my gaming life seriously impacted by the things that turbine has had to do in order to counteract the shinannegans of macroers and the like and i have been hurt a few times. not being able to sell crafted items has hurt my cash flow, especially now that olthoi don't drop the same kinds of loot they used to drop.
i have a bunch of mages (two 3schoolers, three life hybrids, and three pure mages) that will all need level 6 spells very soon, and i am having issues getting the cash to buy them. see, i use buffs a lot, but they are all *MY* buffs. i actually cast my own buffs, level 3's or 4's or whatever the toon is able to cast, so life for my guys is pretty expensive between spells and comps. i am fine with this, i just need to find a good place to hunt for loot. as much as i hate the place, it's looking like the phyntos menace is a good place to hunt for it, at least until i can hunt a toon in a matron hive or the dires.
i also don't take many gifts from others. i have a couple of tinked items, tho not many, and i most of them have been tinked by my mule, tinka. i have powerleveled her a bit, it's true, and now i have a guy pushing XP her way, but i have never put her in an XP chain, nor have i combat macroed her. for a while, i did use her to robochef healing potions which i sold, and for all the effort i guess i ended up with two MMD notes for the trouble. i am not sure it was worth it, but the cash did get all my mages and hybrids at the time into level 5 spells. now there are quests and stuff to help level trade characters and make a little money, and katusa will also help level her, i think she is viable again as a character. this is an example of a good balance to taking something way.
all this is leading to why i don't like macroers or other cheaters: turbine has taken great strides to eliminate them, and sometimes those eliminations have hurt me. i have complained a bit about it, but in general i have lived with the changes. there is always talk of banning third party apps, and i think that that is where i may draw the line. i use magic alot because i don't have much luck with finding really nice items. the bulk of my charactes are mages because spells are easy to get and the only way to get ready access to a complete set of buffs, is to cast them on yourself. this is tedious, unless you use an app like nerfus buffus to do the buffing for you. i have put up with nerfus and decal breaking with each patch, and i will have to admit that for the last few months, life has been good.
if, in it's desperation to stop macroers and other cheaters, turbine does ban 3rd party apps like decal, then people like me who use those apps to take some of the tedium out of playing may be left out. i have to hunt in dungeons because the lands out in the open are full of very high level monsters. the hi level monsters are there cuz the everage toon is like 200th level, unlike me. so to get anywhere i just run like hell and hope i don't get killed. then i tie to the portal of the dungeon you are looking for and recall there until i outgrow the dungeon. this is how all my dudes hunt thanks to the outrageous level to the content in the outlands, which i am sure is in response to all the macroed toons running around complaining that there isn't any content that challenges them.
this is why i don't understand cheating... if you are going to cheat and max out, why bother playing? i know why they do it, becuse they want to be the biggest and the best. that's fine, be the best, but then why would you want the game to be remade to challenge you? if you maxed out in the shortest possible time, then move on, don't hang around an skew the balance for us real players. honestly, where do they come up with this stuff?
Thursday, September 30, 2004
re-rolls revisited
so i have been giving it some more thought and perhaps the best best is to roll vampira again as the life spec dagger, but i am not sure about what to do with ratspike. my goal here is two daggers with lockpick, one that can do double duty as an archer, and one that can act as a mage. getting rat to 3school status was a big undertaking, so i am reluctant to change that. all he really needs is the 6 skill credits to train xbow. now 6 credits is a huge number of levels (like 30). perhaps i need to kill aun railrea and take that credit from him, that will knock 5 levels off the total, but it's still a lot. i don't want to dump healing or manaC, and lockpick is sort of the reason for his existence. one possible option is to unspec meleeD, but i *really* don't want to do that.
so i guess the dagger tank with Xbow is a pretty long term project.
i have tried twice with vampira, both templates were the "quad spec" toon of yore, with 100's for coord, quick, and focus, and spec'd dagger, life, meleeD, and lore. the second was also a quad, but with 75's for pretty much everything. the first iteration was a good tank but a lousy life mage, and the second just wasn't that good at anything. what i want is a more versatile version of moy, having lockpick and being a little stronger at life magic, at the expense of having dagger instead of sword, and being better defensively thanks to a higher meleeD. moy is an axer now, but that will change in two more credits when i go back to sword (which is how he started :-) )
somewhere in this mix, i want to finish kablammus as well. i want to get him the creds he needs to spec creature magic, and then get him some rending wands. once he has that, my hope is that he will be able to just blast things without vulns, and only yield stuff that resists him. i figure he will become a faster killing version of naihanchi at that point. nai seems to be on his way being a war magic version of janus. i am thinking of dumping healing on him to spec creature, at which point he will be spec'd creature, life and manaC. with a critical strike wand he would be dangerous in his own right.
i still need to finish my work with katusa before i start in on vampira. mostly it's gettng him out the newbie uniform (explorer gear) and into the low level gear (olthoi armor, unimbued simulacra gear, and some level 4 jewelry). from there he should be taking on his own persona with his gear and his armor. there's still quite a bit of work to go, but i am always eager to get started with a new project :-)
so i guess the dagger tank with Xbow is a pretty long term project.
i have tried twice with vampira, both templates were the "quad spec" toon of yore, with 100's for coord, quick, and focus, and spec'd dagger, life, meleeD, and lore. the second was also a quad, but with 75's for pretty much everything. the first iteration was a good tank but a lousy life mage, and the second just wasn't that good at anything. what i want is a more versatile version of moy, having lockpick and being a little stronger at life magic, at the expense of having dagger instead of sword, and being better defensively thanks to a higher meleeD. moy is an axer now, but that will change in two more credits when i go back to sword (which is how he started :-) )
somewhere in this mix, i want to finish kablammus as well. i want to get him the creds he needs to spec creature magic, and then get him some rending wands. once he has that, my hope is that he will be able to just blast things without vulns, and only yield stuff that resists him. i figure he will become a faster killing version of naihanchi at that point. nai seems to be on his way being a war magic version of janus. i am thinking of dumping healing on him to spec creature, at which point he will be spec'd creature, life and manaC. with a critical strike wand he would be dangerous in his own right.
i still need to finish my work with katusa before i start in on vampira. mostly it's gettng him out the newbie uniform (explorer gear) and into the low level gear (olthoi armor, unimbued simulacra gear, and some level 4 jewelry). from there he should be taking on his own persona with his gear and his armor. there's still quite a bit of work to go, but i am always eager to get started with a new project :-)
Thursday, September 23, 2004
re-rollin
i decided that having an Xbow toon was not necessary.
i like xbow, but as the primary weapon on a toon, it seems like a waste. it's nice in a handfull of situations (like drawing a target by hitting it for 50 points of damage) but in all i would rather just have xbow as a secondary skill on a tank melee. it hits harder than bow dows, but is very slow. it burns major stamina and it sucks to watch monsters chew on you while you reload. so i rerolled wendigo. right now he's just a mule to hold stuff until i can get another project complete.
shikomi zue, the sword tank pushing XP for tinka has also gotten a bit dull. he seems like sort of a waste since i have played his template a hundred times before and i feel no real attachment to him at all. so i decided to roll a couple of projects in to one:
first, i would like to have a melee tank that can also use a crossbow. i have often looked at the soldier class, the stock template from turbine. it's basically an item only tank axer with xbow trained. plus i like the title, and it would be fitting with his true purpose, to serve and support tinka, who serves the rest of the family. so i deleted shikomi and rolled katusa (the word for soldiers in the army of south korea, tho i have no idea how to spell it correctly) loyalty isn't spec'd at start with this template, so i will have to wait until later to spec it. i am not sure what else to take with him, perhaps lockpick since he is sort of a jack of all trades, and that would essentially make him wendigo with an axe. i want to use him to gather salvage, so i took weapon tinkering with him as well. he has done well so far, i have him at 18th level now, with out powerlevelling, and he has pushed nearly 300k in xp to tinka.
i gave him the standard issue explorer gear to hit 20th in... full suit of explorer armor, explorer buckler and explorer xbow. i will probably get him a quested/crafted axe of some kind as well. the theme is still in keeping the the original pusher: hunting and leveling to pass XP to tinka, gathering salvage and doing quests for items. once4 i get him high enough to hunt in a place with cool lewt, i will consider his project to be complete.
this leaves me with a free slot to roll another toon. i had this vison of two toons that i have had issues seeing to completion:
my original desire was for two dagger toons: one tank with xbow and lockpick (a super tank who is useful on quests) and a 3school life+dagger tank, able to play the mage or tank role, but also having skills to support others. so far ratspike is 75% of both goals... he is 3 schooled, so he is able to buff himself and others, and he has lockpick. rat doesn't have xbow, and is not spec'd life magic. i am not sure how to meet the two goals with only one character, at least not until like 100th level. i have tried the life dagger toon in the past, i have had two iterations named vampira hope. perhaps i can get xbow on ratspike in time, and roll vampira again. both of them will need mad levels to be template complete. perhaps i can have her be my life archer instead of shiki, and spec dagger later on, or maybe just not spec meleeD and just be spec'd life and dagger. the possibilities are endless. katusa *could* serve as my melee and xbow mix, tho so this might be a moot point.
i like xbow, but as the primary weapon on a toon, it seems like a waste. it's nice in a handfull of situations (like drawing a target by hitting it for 50 points of damage) but in all i would rather just have xbow as a secondary skill on a tank melee. it hits harder than bow dows, but is very slow. it burns major stamina and it sucks to watch monsters chew on you while you reload. so i rerolled wendigo. right now he's just a mule to hold stuff until i can get another project complete.
shikomi zue, the sword tank pushing XP for tinka has also gotten a bit dull. he seems like sort of a waste since i have played his template a hundred times before and i feel no real attachment to him at all. so i decided to roll a couple of projects in to one:
first, i would like to have a melee tank that can also use a crossbow. i have often looked at the soldier class, the stock template from turbine. it's basically an item only tank axer with xbow trained. plus i like the title, and it would be fitting with his true purpose, to serve and support tinka, who serves the rest of the family. so i deleted shikomi and rolled katusa (the word for soldiers in the army of south korea, tho i have no idea how to spell it correctly) loyalty isn't spec'd at start with this template, so i will have to wait until later to spec it. i am not sure what else to take with him, perhaps lockpick since he is sort of a jack of all trades, and that would essentially make him wendigo with an axe. i want to use him to gather salvage, so i took weapon tinkering with him as well. he has done well so far, i have him at 18th level now, with out powerlevelling, and he has pushed nearly 300k in xp to tinka.
i gave him the standard issue explorer gear to hit 20th in... full suit of explorer armor, explorer buckler and explorer xbow. i will probably get him a quested/crafted axe of some kind as well. the theme is still in keeping the the original pusher: hunting and leveling to pass XP to tinka, gathering salvage and doing quests for items. once4 i get him high enough to hunt in a place with cool lewt, i will consider his project to be complete.
this leaves me with a free slot to roll another toon. i had this vison of two toons that i have had issues seeing to completion:
my original desire was for two dagger toons: one tank with xbow and lockpick (a super tank who is useful on quests) and a 3school life+dagger tank, able to play the mage or tank role, but also having skills to support others. so far ratspike is 75% of both goals... he is 3 schooled, so he is able to buff himself and others, and he has lockpick. rat doesn't have xbow, and is not spec'd life magic. i am not sure how to meet the two goals with only one character, at least not until like 100th level. i have tried the life dagger toon in the past, i have had two iterations named vampira hope. perhaps i can get xbow on ratspike in time, and roll vampira again. both of them will need mad levels to be template complete. perhaps i can have her be my life archer instead of shiki, and spec dagger later on, or maybe just not spec meleeD and just be spec'd life and dagger. the possibilities are endless. katusa *could* serve as my melee and xbow mix, tho so this might be a moot point.
Monday, September 13, 2004
elysa's disfavor
i am in the process of mving the majority of my crew to 50th level. the free levels given out by turbine are a big help.
part of the move is shoring up the weaknesses some of my characters have with their templates. one handy way to add a little power to someone who is lacking in some aspect, is to use an item with a minor on it. majors and minors stack with buffs, so even 3 schoolers can feel the love.
hwa is lacking in strength, and so i want to give him the elysa's favor that janus has, with a minor strength buff. janus uses it only partially for the strength buff, her interest is the lifegiver buff. she is a martyr mage, so her attack spells (drains and lifebolts) are powered by health. it would be nice to replace the item with an endurance buff.
when i rolled hwa, he couldn't afford to be that extreme, so i favored coordination and self since he was going to need mana, weapon skill and meleeD above all else. now that he is older, and fleshed out a little more, i am going to favor strength and focus a bit more and possibly dump quickness and MeleeD all together.
the elysa's favor quest is pretty easy, a tank in his 30's should be able solo it with level 7 buffs, and a level 40+ should be able to complete it solo with his or her own buffs. the quest is full of hollows, so i wouldn't bother with a toon that isn't spec'd meleeD. life protects and banes are worthless against hollows, so fighting them is a challenge regardelss of your level. the final dungeon is a madhouse for spawning, so if you are going solo, bring *tons* of stamina potions.
i did the quest twice this weekend, once with leslea hope, my grief sword tank and once with ratspike, my 3school dagger tank, and was rewarded with focus and armor versions, but not the endurance version i was seeking. leslea ran out of potions and died in the final dungeon, while ratspike was able to recall out to relative safety when his potion suplly ran out. i had pyung on deck to complete it as well, but i decided to try trading for the endurance version instead since i could conceivably be doing this quest for the rest of my life. i will trade the armor version and give ratspike the focus version as he would benefit most by it.
UPDATE: someone in my clan was able to provide an endurance version for me and i will equip janus with it shortly. i may need to cheat some with hwa to get his favor equipped since he doesn't have lore trained.
part of the move is shoring up the weaknesses some of my characters have with their templates. one handy way to add a little power to someone who is lacking in some aspect, is to use an item with a minor on it. majors and minors stack with buffs, so even 3 schoolers can feel the love.
hwa is lacking in strength, and so i want to give him the elysa's favor that janus has, with a minor strength buff. janus uses it only partially for the strength buff, her interest is the lifegiver buff. she is a martyr mage, so her attack spells (drains and lifebolts) are powered by health. it would be nice to replace the item with an endurance buff.
when i rolled hwa, he couldn't afford to be that extreme, so i favored coordination and self since he was going to need mana, weapon skill and meleeD above all else. now that he is older, and fleshed out a little more, i am going to favor strength and focus a bit more and possibly dump quickness and MeleeD all together.
the elysa's favor quest is pretty easy, a tank in his 30's should be able solo it with level 7 buffs, and a level 40+ should be able to complete it solo with his or her own buffs. the quest is full of hollows, so i wouldn't bother with a toon that isn't spec'd meleeD. life protects and banes are worthless against hollows, so fighting them is a challenge regardelss of your level. the final dungeon is a madhouse for spawning, so if you are going solo, bring *tons* of stamina potions.
i did the quest twice this weekend, once with leslea hope, my grief sword tank and once with ratspike, my 3school dagger tank, and was rewarded with focus and armor versions, but not the endurance version i was seeking. leslea ran out of potions and died in the final dungeon, while ratspike was able to recall out to relative safety when his potion suplly ran out. i had pyung on deck to complete it as well, but i decided to try trading for the endurance version instead since i could conceivably be doing this quest for the rest of my life. i will trade the armor version and give ratspike the focus version as he would benefit most by it.
UPDATE: someone in my clan was able to provide an endurance version for me and i will equip janus with it shortly. i may need to cheat some with hwa to get his favor equipped since he doesn't have lore trained.
Friday, September 10, 2004
to Dee or not to Dee
so i am grappling with the decisions i have made for hwa rang.
i know his starting stats are straight gimpin, and i am trying to fix that, but i am not sure what to do about his choice of melee weapon. he was just trained UA, and with is low strength, he was not much of a force to be reckoned with in the damage department. that is fine, since he uses imperils, vulns and debuffs to knock things don to his level and increase his damage.
while his magic skills are coming along nicely, he is still lacking in the damage department. my first step was to dump the XP he had in UA and train spear. that, backed with tossing a few points into strength, should improve his damage a bit. i have hunted him a bit and he is now able to hit for double damage without an imperil, and for 50 points a shot after a full set of debuffs.
this is good, but not great. i need to either specialize a weapon so that he can land more hits, or take a weapon that will let him oneshot creatures. this is why i have been contemplating just dumping meleeD all together, and pulling the points out of quickness to add to strength. with the extra skill credits he could spec a weapon like mace or axe to do the most damage. he can land drains on lots of things now, so he should be able to live without meleeD. i may have to bump his endurnace and stamina a bit to compensate for hitting at full power.
i would like to do axe instead of mace. axes are generall lighter than maces, and therefore use less stamina. hwa is lacking a bit in the strength department, even once but that would leave me with three axers (moy, kats, and now hwa). this is compounded by the fact that moy and hwa are pretty similar templatewise. i will fix that by taking sword on moy. he started as a sword back in the day, and around 60th he will have it again.
i know his starting stats are straight gimpin, and i am trying to fix that, but i am not sure what to do about his choice of melee weapon. he was just trained UA, and with is low strength, he was not much of a force to be reckoned with in the damage department. that is fine, since he uses imperils, vulns and debuffs to knock things don to his level and increase his damage.
while his magic skills are coming along nicely, he is still lacking in the damage department. my first step was to dump the XP he had in UA and train spear. that, backed with tossing a few points into strength, should improve his damage a bit. i have hunted him a bit and he is now able to hit for double damage without an imperil, and for 50 points a shot after a full set of debuffs.
this is good, but not great. i need to either specialize a weapon so that he can land more hits, or take a weapon that will let him oneshot creatures. this is why i have been contemplating just dumping meleeD all together, and pulling the points out of quickness to add to strength. with the extra skill credits he could spec a weapon like mace or axe to do the most damage. he can land drains on lots of things now, so he should be able to live without meleeD. i may have to bump his endurnace and stamina a bit to compensate for hitting at full power.
i would like to do axe instead of mace. axes are generall lighter than maces, and therefore use less stamina. hwa is lacking a bit in the strength department, even once but that would leave me with three axers (moy, kats, and now hwa). this is compounded by the fact that moy and hwa are pretty similar templatewise. i will fix that by taking sword on moy. he started as a sword back in the day, and around 60th he will have it again.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
pandemonium on the plateau
so i finally got a chance to hook up with nom and opti in game, for the first time in like a month.
we were milling around, i didn't want to drag everyone on a quest that i should be doing, solo and opti decided we should do raeta's necklace. had one that pandy gave me when i first started, and i gave it to a guy who had issues with healing. this was going to be easy, except that the tumerok dude had moved to a new location. that meant wandering around until we finally broke down and checked maggies to do the stupid quest. once we found him it was smooth sailing. we were at least 50 levels higher than all of the mosters in the dungeon, and we had a level 126 mage, so we were proabably pretty safe there.
then we had the brilliant idea to do the refulgent bracelet quest, only with two twists:
1) i would lead the quest
2) i would not have any preparation, not even knowing the name of the quest
so we set off for the plateau with crimson hellkite in tow, a level 100+. this puts us at 1 level 51, one level 56, one level 100+ and opti who is like level 140. we need to find the cultist shrine to begin the quest. this proved to be a challenge in itself since i can never find any sort of random spawn EVER.
so after wandering around for an hour the four of decide to split into two teams, one 50somethign matched with one 100something. this is cool, and rath and i continue our search. as we are racing about, more and more critters becgin chasing us and the lag is building up. soon i make a wrong turn and rath and i are separated. the entire plateau is chasing me now, including swarm nobles and other nasties. i get to a cliff of somce kind and i jump. since i survived, i figured i hadn't jumped off the plateau. as soon as i get free, ki and opti say they have found the shrine.
all i need to do is find a way round the mountains that i jumped off of and rejoin the group. after like 30 minutes of trying to find a way back up i figure that i had in fact jumped off the plateau and lived to tell the tale. now the big buffs that opti put on me are gone, and i have to recall to the lifestone and make the run to the plateau drop from rithwic.
to save time, since the whole group has been waiting for a half hour on me, i decide to just run to the coords for the shrine unbuffed. this isn't as crazy as it sounds since he has a set of 350 al bug armor and i wasn't planning on standing still. i came running for the group and right into a pack of eviscerators. with 4 of them on my my last use of me healing kit went and i ate it less than a click from the shrine.
so opti meets me at the platue drop and buffs me, i grab my bod and head for the shrine and we are inside within minutes, no thanks to me.
then we run around for hours trying to figure out the doors and crap. we finally just give up and log out right there, vowing to continue the next night.
the next night is even worse punishment. we can't find a missing phase of the lever hell, and ki and i both die at least once apiece. for some stupid reason i kept going... it was utterly miserable.
so cool as it is to "lead" (i wouldn't call it leading so much as being the final word on where the scrambling should be done) i think i would rahter just support a well run, and thruoughly prepared quest. and i won't be doing any quests i can't solo for some time.
we were milling around, i didn't want to drag everyone on a quest that i should be doing, solo and opti decided we should do raeta's necklace. had one that pandy gave me when i first started, and i gave it to a guy who had issues with healing. this was going to be easy, except that the tumerok dude had moved to a new location. that meant wandering around until we finally broke down and checked maggies to do the stupid quest. once we found him it was smooth sailing. we were at least 50 levels higher than all of the mosters in the dungeon, and we had a level 126 mage, so we were proabably pretty safe there.
then we had the brilliant idea to do the refulgent bracelet quest, only with two twists:
1) i would lead the quest
2) i would not have any preparation, not even knowing the name of the quest
so we set off for the plateau with crimson hellkite in tow, a level 100+. this puts us at 1 level 51, one level 56, one level 100+ and opti who is like level 140. we need to find the cultist shrine to begin the quest. this proved to be a challenge in itself since i can never find any sort of random spawn EVER.
so after wandering around for an hour the four of decide to split into two teams, one 50somethign matched with one 100something. this is cool, and rath and i continue our search. as we are racing about, more and more critters becgin chasing us and the lag is building up. soon i make a wrong turn and rath and i are separated. the entire plateau is chasing me now, including swarm nobles and other nasties. i get to a cliff of somce kind and i jump. since i survived, i figured i hadn't jumped off the plateau. as soon as i get free, ki and opti say they have found the shrine.
all i need to do is find a way round the mountains that i jumped off of and rejoin the group. after like 30 minutes of trying to find a way back up i figure that i had in fact jumped off the plateau and lived to tell the tale. now the big buffs that opti put on me are gone, and i have to recall to the lifestone and make the run to the plateau drop from rithwic.
to save time, since the whole group has been waiting for a half hour on me, i decide to just run to the coords for the shrine unbuffed. this isn't as crazy as it sounds since he has a set of 350 al bug armor and i wasn't planning on standing still. i came running for the group and right into a pack of eviscerators. with 4 of them on my my last use of me healing kit went and i ate it less than a click from the shrine.
so opti meets me at the platue drop and buffs me, i grab my bod and head for the shrine and we are inside within minutes, no thanks to me.
then we run around for hours trying to figure out the doors and crap. we finally just give up and log out right there, vowing to continue the next night.
the next night is even worse punishment. we can't find a missing phase of the lever hell, and ki and i both die at least once apiece. for some stupid reason i kept going... it was utterly miserable.
so cool as it is to "lead" (i wouldn't call it leading so much as being the final word on where the scrambling should be done) i think i would rahter just support a well run, and thruoughly prepared quest. and i won't be doing any quests i can't solo for some time.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
serendipity
i was hunting kablammus, my war mage, around mayoi and picked a fight with a swarm of golems.
soloing mages is tricky. they can handle creatures well above their level, but only one at a time. they have to hunt out in the open and pick single targets. sometimes this works well, sometimes it ends in death. mages die a lot, that's just a fact of mage life. it's hard to hunt a young mage solo, especially in the high teens to low twenties because there are not many level 30-40 creatures other than olthoi.
mayoi is probably the best place i have seen to hunt mages, tho you will just havve to tolerate packs of level 26 luggies, monougas and ursuins. he was doing ok with the packs of drudges, luggies, low level tuskers, and even the occasional olthoi, but when he ran into 3 unstable magma golems, things got rough.
i call it rough becuse he managed to kill the first UMG rather quickly, and the third decided not to come join the fun. normally this would mean great success, however 3 granite golems who were off my radar ALSO decided that they wanted a piece of the action, and i ended up back at the lifestone. i made a second pass with no luck and when i dropped my third corpse and the last of my death items, i decided it was getting out of hand.
so i visited the buffbot at our mansion. i figured two pyreal motes was a good trade for a couple of sets of buffs and then i set off to recover my bods. this is where things go interesting:
on my way to my bod i ran across a pack of mattekars, one of which was of the tundra variety. it took a few attempts, but i finally got it yielded and vulned, and after drianing it's dire mattekar buddies, i managed to kill it and received a robe of the tundra for my efforts, which is al 100, very nice for a robe. with a round of level 4 banes, it's al 300 for most attack types, which is nice seeing as how he has really outgrown the crappy al140 chainmail he is wearing.
when i finally get to the bods, all the golems have been replaced with drudges, including the northern black claw raider. i have stumbled into this dungeon before, and it's a great place for low to mid level mages to hunt. i still needed to get the bods, ao i tied to the portal instead. i have heard that you can't tie to it, but i figured it was worth a shot.
so i clear the spawns of drudges and other critters, grab the bods, and the northern black claw raider and his friends respawn again. so i hop thru the portal and finish out the buffs hunting and looting the drudges. thanks to the buffs, he was able to take on raveners and managed to make a couple of levels, and looted enough cash to finish buying his level 4 buffs. with a little more cash he can buy level 5 wars and then it just a matter of grinding to 40th and spec'd creature magic. the new robe will do nicley until i can find him a set of hieromancer's armor or a set of olthoi gear.
soloing mages is tricky. they can handle creatures well above their level, but only one at a time. they have to hunt out in the open and pick single targets. sometimes this works well, sometimes it ends in death. mages die a lot, that's just a fact of mage life. it's hard to hunt a young mage solo, especially in the high teens to low twenties because there are not many level 30-40 creatures other than olthoi.
mayoi is probably the best place i have seen to hunt mages, tho you will just havve to tolerate packs of level 26 luggies, monougas and ursuins. he was doing ok with the packs of drudges, luggies, low level tuskers, and even the occasional olthoi, but when he ran into 3 unstable magma golems, things got rough.
i call it rough becuse he managed to kill the first UMG rather quickly, and the third decided not to come join the fun. normally this would mean great success, however 3 granite golems who were off my radar ALSO decided that they wanted a piece of the action, and i ended up back at the lifestone. i made a second pass with no luck and when i dropped my third corpse and the last of my death items, i decided it was getting out of hand.
so i visited the buffbot at our mansion. i figured two pyreal motes was a good trade for a couple of sets of buffs and then i set off to recover my bods. this is where things go interesting:
on my way to my bod i ran across a pack of mattekars, one of which was of the tundra variety. it took a few attempts, but i finally got it yielded and vulned, and after drianing it's dire mattekar buddies, i managed to kill it and received a robe of the tundra for my efforts, which is al 100, very nice for a robe. with a round of level 4 banes, it's al 300 for most attack types, which is nice seeing as how he has really outgrown the crappy al140 chainmail he is wearing.
when i finally get to the bods, all the golems have been replaced with drudges, including the northern black claw raider. i have stumbled into this dungeon before, and it's a great place for low to mid level mages to hunt. i still needed to get the bods, ao i tied to the portal instead. i have heard that you can't tie to it, but i figured it was worth a shot.
so i clear the spawns of drudges and other critters, grab the bods, and the northern black claw raider and his friends respawn again. so i hop thru the portal and finish out the buffs hunting and looting the drudges. thanks to the buffs, he was able to take on raveners and managed to make a couple of levels, and looted enough cash to finish buying his level 4 buffs. with a little more cash he can buy level 5 wars and then it just a matter of grinding to 40th and spec'd creature magic. the new robe will do nicley until i can find him a set of hieromancer's armor or a set of olthoi gear.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
i am not alone
MegaTokyo
read piro's rant about playing ragnarok online at the bottom of the page... he, like me, doesn't want lots of help and doesn't mind being a n00b:
that's pretty much how i am. i think part of it comes from starting the game in such a small monarchy with no inactive players, i had to take care of myself cuz there was no one on to help, even if i did need it. it's not that i don't like playing with other people... it's just that the way i like to play means i am never going to be high enough level to help anyone who isn't a total n00b, and i don't really have the patience to work with someone who is a total n00b.
read piro's rant about playing ragnarok online at the bottom of the page... he, like me, doesn't want lots of help and doesn't mind being a n00b:
"I'll help you level up!" was what friends always used to tell me, but there was always a part of me that rebelled against that idea, at least initially. I wanted to do my time as a true noob and figure things out the hard way. Having someone walk me through everything just seemed... like it'd take the fun out of it. Part of that comes from a very single player mindset i suffer from. Kind of odd that'd i'd take so much interest in an online roll playing game :P
that's pretty much how i am. i think part of it comes from starting the game in such a small monarchy with no inactive players, i had to take care of myself cuz there was no one on to help, even if i did need it. it's not that i don't like playing with other people... it's just that the way i like to play means i am never going to be high enough level to help anyone who isn't a total n00b, and i don't really have the patience to work with someone who is a total n00b.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
teh pusher
so i made a character to push XP up to tinka. his name is shikome zue, named for a kind of japanese sword hidden in a cane, inspired by the sword lucy liu carries in kill bill vol1, which i saw the other night.
kome is an item only tank, and since his only real mission is to earn XP for his mistress, i went ahead and PL'd him a bit. after giving him all the white wasp wings and olthoi claws my other characters have collected, and a few buffs in the olthoi arcade, he is 24th level after about 4 hours of game play, and hasn't had a single death. it's revolting.
now i see why some choose to UCM. i still don't apporive of the practice, but if you are just going to buff up and hit the same dungeon, you might as well not be at the keyboard. anyway, in a few more levels he'll be able to hit the arcade and then some other place after that. playing him isn't much fun. i have taken item tinking with him to start out, tho i still haven't made a decision about what to with his other credits. at the very least, he will make a nice mule since he is so strong.
kome is an item only tank, and since his only real mission is to earn XP for his mistress, i went ahead and PL'd him a bit. after giving him all the white wasp wings and olthoi claws my other characters have collected, and a few buffs in the olthoi arcade, he is 24th level after about 4 hours of game play, and hasn't had a single death. it's revolting.
now i see why some choose to UCM. i still don't apporive of the practice, but if you are just going to buff up and hit the same dungeon, you might as well not be at the keyboard. anyway, in a few more levels he'll be able to hit the arcade and then some other place after that. playing him isn't much fun. i have taken item tinking with him to start out, tho i still haven't made a decision about what to with his other credits. at the very least, he will make a nice mule since he is so strong.
Monday, August 23, 2004
the projects
so here is a little update on my long term projects:
1) getting moy to 50th: getting my to 50th level was somewhat anticlimactic. he is now a big kid tho, and able to hunt and XP share with the best of them. my new goal for him to be 300 base in axe and casting level 7's in all 3 schools. so phase 1 is complete, now we are ready for phase 2.
2) training spear on hwa: hwa just made 40th and dumped UA for spear. he is an OG mage with a spear, and still a bit of a gimp until i can get some more points redistributed. he is also in need of some quest items to improve his abilities, namely some minors or moderates. i would call this project "mostly complete", now i just need to improve him with some items.
3) getting ratspike to 40th and becoming 3schooled: i have managed to get ratspike to 40th, so he now has the 2 skill credits he needs to dump arcane lore completely in favor of creature magic. i have lore unspec'd now and in two weeks, i will be able to untrian it and train critter. as a 3 school tank with lockpick, he will come in handy on quests that call for it. i would call this project "almost complete"
4) getting lesleah to 300 base in sword and meleeD: this is a very involved goal, but in the end, she will become my premier tank. she is still probably almost 30 points shy on sword, and 50 points shy in meleeD, and having just spec'd magicD as well, the temptation to pour points into it as well is strong indeed. she may actually hit 60th before she makes the 300's. 300's are compelling for 3 reasons: 1 the sword of lost light infusions, 2 her diamond shield, and 3, her sunstone gaunts. with those items and a full set of covenant armor, she be the kind of badass that other badasses are afraid of. i have tried to speed the process along a bit by powerleveling in the phyntos menace, but hunting there, however profitable, is just too miserable. i am pretty sick of OHN as well, and i think it's time to check out one of the higher level lugian citadels or alphus lassel for a change of pace.
5) getting tinka ready for pure muledom: tinka was going to be a mule that could actually fight. at the time i didn't realize that dagger was based off of coordination and quickness, so she was always lacking in both the dagger and meleeD departments. she had meleeD trained at creation, and i wanted to dump it in favor of leadership, arcane lore and specializing lockpick. i decided last nite that i would do this, the only problem is that she is my only mule, and is carrying just about everything. rather than get other characters to mule for her, i sold off some things that i no longer needed, and got her burden to around 160%, then took her to get buffed and made the run to cragstone and out to far horizon. the run was slow to say the least, and she got beaten on a few times by the local monsters. i took the long way around and got her to the big giant head largely unmolested. she took her acid dirk and made short work of the first four golems, but had no luck against the obsidians, she was hitting them for 6 and 8 points each. this was not good, and she nearly ate it once. this was a big problem. fortunately, i had decided to leave ratspike at the temple from his venture to untrain lore, so i logged tinka out and ratspike in, and i ran him thru the exit portal and back thru to the obsidians, where he made short work of them as well. with them out of the way, i signed tinka back in and ran thru the portal to the inner sanctum. witht he baddies out of the way, she dumped meleeD, trained lore and leadership, and dumped the points from meleeD accordingly. now she is ready for a vassal to earn XP for her, which takes me to my next project:
6) tinka's pusher: i want to roll a melee to swear to tinka and push XP up to her. my first thought was to roll a sword, since they have lots of quest items to choose from. i was thinking of your basic item only tank with loyalty spec'd, tho i really want a 3 school sword. after playing lesleah, i can see that swordies are definitely loved best by AC. part of me wants to eventually turn all of my melee hybrids into swords, so i have a collection: 1 og mage with sword trained, 1 life and sword spec'd, one 3 school sword tank, and one item only grief sword tank. that would be fun, but i am not sure they will end up that way. part of me wants to see hwa as an OG axer, tho life without meleeD is a scary proposition.
7) pyung the macer: Pyung is my 3 schooled UA tank, who will have enough credits to spec mace at 50th. he is 43rd right now, and will be my premier bug basher once i get him outfitted. his magical abilities suck, so i will start looking in to getting a rending mace for him.
8) janus the grief martyr: janus is my martyr mage, spec'd creature, life, and manaC. she is also trained in lore and item. right now she's almost 40th, and at 50th she will be able to spec magicD. this will improve her defenses against spell casters, and i am hoping this will make it easier to hunt with her solo. her real specialty is supporting other hunters. at 50th, with magicD sec'd and an awakener and her healer's heart, she will be the anchor for every family big hunt.
9) kablammus the opal mage: blammy is a war spec'd mage, and when he has the credits, he will spec critter. war magic is his thing, and while vulns help him hit harder, being resisted is his downfall. being able to magic yield stuff will be a big help to him, especially with a set of rending wands.
10) armor: this is the toughest project since i don't know how or where to begin. essentially i want sets of unique armor for all of my characters. some of them are complete already some are still rocking the hand me down explorer or olthoi gear. pyung and hwa have GSX and matching helmets that make them look super cool (pyung is in sliver koujia with a matching kabuton, and hwa is in red amuli with a red virindi mask), i have a set of 40+ otlhoi armor on moy, but i would rather see him in something else. i want to get a set of exarch armor for kablammus as he grows up. when all of my guys make 50th, i would like them to have armor that makes them distinctive.
1) getting moy to 50th: getting my to 50th level was somewhat anticlimactic. he is now a big kid tho, and able to hunt and XP share with the best of them. my new goal for him to be 300 base in axe and casting level 7's in all 3 schools. so phase 1 is complete, now we are ready for phase 2.
2) training spear on hwa: hwa just made 40th and dumped UA for spear. he is an OG mage with a spear, and still a bit of a gimp until i can get some more points redistributed. he is also in need of some quest items to improve his abilities, namely some minors or moderates. i would call this project "mostly complete", now i just need to improve him with some items.
3) getting ratspike to 40th and becoming 3schooled: i have managed to get ratspike to 40th, so he now has the 2 skill credits he needs to dump arcane lore completely in favor of creature magic. i have lore unspec'd now and in two weeks, i will be able to untrian it and train critter. as a 3 school tank with lockpick, he will come in handy on quests that call for it. i would call this project "almost complete"
4) getting lesleah to 300 base in sword and meleeD: this is a very involved goal, but in the end, she will become my premier tank. she is still probably almost 30 points shy on sword, and 50 points shy in meleeD, and having just spec'd magicD as well, the temptation to pour points into it as well is strong indeed. she may actually hit 60th before she makes the 300's. 300's are compelling for 3 reasons: 1 the sword of lost light infusions, 2 her diamond shield, and 3, her sunstone gaunts. with those items and a full set of covenant armor, she be the kind of badass that other badasses are afraid of. i have tried to speed the process along a bit by powerleveling in the phyntos menace, but hunting there, however profitable, is just too miserable. i am pretty sick of OHN as well, and i think it's time to check out one of the higher level lugian citadels or alphus lassel for a change of pace.
5) getting tinka ready for pure muledom: tinka was going to be a mule that could actually fight. at the time i didn't realize that dagger was based off of coordination and quickness, so she was always lacking in both the dagger and meleeD departments. she had meleeD trained at creation, and i wanted to dump it in favor of leadership, arcane lore and specializing lockpick. i decided last nite that i would do this, the only problem is that she is my only mule, and is carrying just about everything. rather than get other characters to mule for her, i sold off some things that i no longer needed, and got her burden to around 160%, then took her to get buffed and made the run to cragstone and out to far horizon. the run was slow to say the least, and she got beaten on a few times by the local monsters. i took the long way around and got her to the big giant head largely unmolested. she took her acid dirk and made short work of the first four golems, but had no luck against the obsidians, she was hitting them for 6 and 8 points each. this was not good, and she nearly ate it once. this was a big problem. fortunately, i had decided to leave ratspike at the temple from his venture to untrain lore, so i logged tinka out and ratspike in, and i ran him thru the exit portal and back thru to the obsidians, where he made short work of them as well. with them out of the way, i signed tinka back in and ran thru the portal to the inner sanctum. witht he baddies out of the way, she dumped meleeD, trained lore and leadership, and dumped the points from meleeD accordingly. now she is ready for a vassal to earn XP for her, which takes me to my next project:
6) tinka's pusher: i want to roll a melee to swear to tinka and push XP up to her. my first thought was to roll a sword, since they have lots of quest items to choose from. i was thinking of your basic item only tank with loyalty spec'd, tho i really want a 3 school sword. after playing lesleah, i can see that swordies are definitely loved best by AC. part of me wants to eventually turn all of my melee hybrids into swords, so i have a collection: 1 og mage with sword trained, 1 life and sword spec'd, one 3 school sword tank, and one item only grief sword tank. that would be fun, but i am not sure they will end up that way. part of me wants to see hwa as an OG axer, tho life without meleeD is a scary proposition.
7) pyung the macer: Pyung is my 3 schooled UA tank, who will have enough credits to spec mace at 50th. he is 43rd right now, and will be my premier bug basher once i get him outfitted. his magical abilities suck, so i will start looking in to getting a rending mace for him.
8) janus the grief martyr: janus is my martyr mage, spec'd creature, life, and manaC. she is also trained in lore and item. right now she's almost 40th, and at 50th she will be able to spec magicD. this will improve her defenses against spell casters, and i am hoping this will make it easier to hunt with her solo. her real specialty is supporting other hunters. at 50th, with magicD sec'd and an awakener and her healer's heart, she will be the anchor for every family big hunt.
9) kablammus the opal mage: blammy is a war spec'd mage, and when he has the credits, he will spec critter. war magic is his thing, and while vulns help him hit harder, being resisted is his downfall. being able to magic yield stuff will be a big help to him, especially with a set of rending wands.
10) armor: this is the toughest project since i don't know how or where to begin. essentially i want sets of unique armor for all of my characters. some of them are complete already some are still rocking the hand me down explorer or olthoi gear. pyung and hwa have GSX and matching helmets that make them look super cool (pyung is in sliver koujia with a matching kabuton, and hwa is in red amuli with a red virindi mask), i have a set of 40+ otlhoi armor on moy, but i would rather see him in something else. i want to get a set of exarch armor for kablammus as he grows up. when all of my guys make 50th, i would like them to have armor that makes them distinctive.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
wendigo's arcade fiasco
sometimes i do stupid things without knowing, but it's especially tragic when i do stupid stuff while i am fully aware.
i have rerolled so many characters that i have levelling newbs up down to a science.
here's how it works: i have a complete set of explorer gear (armor, shield and jewelry) that i use for my first 15 or so levels, hunting the drudge hideout first, then the shoushi grotto, then finally the first two pincer runs and the olthoi arcade. once you get lore up to a usable level, it's time to look for level4 and 5 item buffs, or work on becoming 3 schooled, and casting level 3 spells. once you hit something like 15th to 20th, you hit the lugian citadel, and at 20th it's time to move into lesser olthoi armor. from there, you should be street legal and can hunt for your own loot.
this isn't a quick process since i really don't do buff bots, but it is fairly efficient. wendigo, my xbow tank, has made the jump from explorer armor to olthoi gear, with an unimbued simulacra helm that i found in a shop. i have him some level4 item buffs, including cold and acid protects (which he will use to hunt the sclavus cit), and a nice pair of armor6 pants. i cheated a little and used nai to drop some buffs on him to activate the stuff, but he is essentially ready to hunt. the only problem is he is lacking the physical protects such as blade, bludge, and pierce.
this makes hunting in the arcade pretty challenging since bugs can do hella piecing damage if you aren't protected.
i figured his meleeD was gonna make up for his lack of protects, but i was clearly mistaken. my first trip there i met some impatient shrew named tinkle bell. she aksed me where i was going and for some stupid reason i said i told her (actually it was greed, remembering the very productive run i had with ratspike a few weeks ago). she got all impatient when i was buying arrows. her impatience grew when i realized i could only buy shafts in redspire and had to fletch a bunch of them.
we finally got to the arcade and i realized too late that i had no stamina potions. i got killed when i bottomed out and had to run back. our little fellowship was concerned over my bod, which was sweet, but i knew exactly where it was, so i wasn't concerned. i used the free trip to the lifestone to buy stamina potions, and ran back in. i joined up with tinkle, who didn't know her way around the arcade, and was trying to join the others who were hunting the servants on the bottom floor.
people who hunt the arcade always head straight for the servants and wait around for them to spawn. i don't know why they do that. it's retarded, if you ask me, since there are hundreds of bugs on the drone level who, while being worth 33% less XP are easier to kill and 4 times as plentiful. i am all for hunting serviant if no one is on the servant floor, but if it's camped, just go somewhere else.
this is why i don't normally fellow in the arcade.
the arcade is a great place for low level chars to hunt cuz it's good XP, olthoi don't cast war spells, and you can decide how far in you want to go. i also like the OHN for the same reasons.
anyway, i get back to my bod, and lead tinkle to the drones floor, and stupid me, i get waffled again. at this point i just give up and log out, and i will have to go back thru my items and stuff to find a pierce protect.
i have one on a bracelet, so i just need to find a ring with the same quickness or coordination buffs provided by my current bracelets.
so for now, wendigo sucks until i can find a better protect for him. once i get that he should be able to hunt the scalvus cit and, hopefully, OHN. i am not sure what to do with him from here. he is already template complete, perhaps i will spec magicD, but that would pretty much make him lesleah hope, with lockpick and an Xbow.
i have rerolled so many characters that i have levelling newbs up down to a science.
here's how it works: i have a complete set of explorer gear (armor, shield and jewelry) that i use for my first 15 or so levels, hunting the drudge hideout first, then the shoushi grotto, then finally the first two pincer runs and the olthoi arcade. once you get lore up to a usable level, it's time to look for level4 and 5 item buffs, or work on becoming 3 schooled, and casting level 3 spells. once you hit something like 15th to 20th, you hit the lugian citadel, and at 20th it's time to move into lesser olthoi armor. from there, you should be street legal and can hunt for your own loot.
this isn't a quick process since i really don't do buff bots, but it is fairly efficient. wendigo, my xbow tank, has made the jump from explorer armor to olthoi gear, with an unimbued simulacra helm that i found in a shop. i have him some level4 item buffs, including cold and acid protects (which he will use to hunt the sclavus cit), and a nice pair of armor6 pants. i cheated a little and used nai to drop some buffs on him to activate the stuff, but he is essentially ready to hunt. the only problem is he is lacking the physical protects such as blade, bludge, and pierce.
this makes hunting in the arcade pretty challenging since bugs can do hella piecing damage if you aren't protected.
i figured his meleeD was gonna make up for his lack of protects, but i was clearly mistaken. my first trip there i met some impatient shrew named tinkle bell. she aksed me where i was going and for some stupid reason i said i told her (actually it was greed, remembering the very productive run i had with ratspike a few weeks ago). she got all impatient when i was buying arrows. her impatience grew when i realized i could only buy shafts in redspire and had to fletch a bunch of them.
we finally got to the arcade and i realized too late that i had no stamina potions. i got killed when i bottomed out and had to run back. our little fellowship was concerned over my bod, which was sweet, but i knew exactly where it was, so i wasn't concerned. i used the free trip to the lifestone to buy stamina potions, and ran back in. i joined up with tinkle, who didn't know her way around the arcade, and was trying to join the others who were hunting the servants on the bottom floor.
people who hunt the arcade always head straight for the servants and wait around for them to spawn. i don't know why they do that. it's retarded, if you ask me, since there are hundreds of bugs on the drone level who, while being worth 33% less XP are easier to kill and 4 times as plentiful. i am all for hunting serviant if no one is on the servant floor, but if it's camped, just go somewhere else.
this is why i don't normally fellow in the arcade.
the arcade is a great place for low level chars to hunt cuz it's good XP, olthoi don't cast war spells, and you can decide how far in you want to go. i also like the OHN for the same reasons.
anyway, i get back to my bod, and lead tinkle to the drones floor, and stupid me, i get waffled again. at this point i just give up and log out, and i will have to go back thru my items and stuff to find a pierce protect.
i have one on a bracelet, so i just need to find a ring with the same quickness or coordination buffs provided by my current bracelets.
so for now, wendigo sucks until i can find a better protect for him. once i get that he should be able to hunt the scalvus cit and, hopefully, OHN. i am not sure what to do with him from here. he is already template complete, perhaps i will spec magicD, but that would pretty much make him lesleah hope, with lockpick and an Xbow.
the big move
i have been fighting with blogger over archiving for far too long.
so i surrendered and moved the host to blogspot.
this means that the formatting and links i set up are no more, but i will hack the template a bit and see if i can't infuse just a little personality into it.
i don't think that anyone has visited here yet, as i have not given the URL to a single living soul, but just in case, i will put up a redirecor on the old site.
so i surrendered and moved the host to blogspot.
this means that the formatting and links i set up are no more, but i will hack the template a bit and see if i can't infuse just a little personality into it.
i don't think that anyone has visited here yet, as i have not given the URL to a single living soul, but just in case, i will put up a redirecor on the old site.
Monday, August 02, 2004
redistributing
i have a collection of characters who range from full on mages to item only tanks, and a few mixes in between, and now that they are levelling up, i am experincing some growing pains and/or some overlap with my templates.
i have a guy named wendigo, who is an item only tank xbower with lockpick. he is a better template than my tank bower, with 100 startig focus and 10 strength, so he is a better healer, fletcher, and lockpicker. since he is essentially tonsihiki with an xbow, i am gonna redistribute tonishiki into a life archer.
first thing i will need to do is get him to 40th first so he has enough skill credits. since he is like 28th now, that will be a bit of a project.
then i need to pull points out of quickness and strength and put them into focus and self, then unspec bow and MeleeD, and untrian lore and lockpick, then train manaC, creature, and life magic, then finally, spec life magic.
at some point i will probably spec bow again once i get the credits.
another redistribution project will be to outfit hwa rang to be a better melee.
hwa was an OG UA, and his original template was 40 str, 80 coord, 50 quick, 10 end, 50 focus and 100 self.
this left him with a few holes:
1) his melee damage was pathetic.
2) his healing skill is also pathetic.
3) his magic skills are somewhat poor for a dual spec character of his level.
the melee damage is being addressed in two ways:
first, i spent 4 credits to strain spear. i could have spec'd UA with just two more, but i figured a higher base damage was more important at this point.
second: i am going to redistribute his attributes to support his other goals.
moy, my life axer, came after hwa, and was an attempt to compromise between my two UA characters, hwa and pyung. pyung is a 3school tank, so his melee is very strong, but he can't use his magic very well offensively. if pyung is hunting at his level he cannot land a debuff or a vuln, so his magic used pretty much just to buff or to recover between spawns. this is fine, and at the higher levels he will make a great hunter, especially when he trades UA for mace. moy is specc'd life magic and axe, so he can vuln and his axe skill is strong enough to hit without using debuffs. his template is a bit higher in strength, at the expense of a bit of magic. i would like to boost hwa's strength a bit, while keeping his magic skills roughly the same.
to do this, i will need to lower quickness and self a bit, while raising foucs and strength. pulling points out of self and putting them into focus, should boost his ability to heal, without adversely affecting his magic skills. i am hoping that the hit to meleeD won't be all that severe thanks to him using a shield, but only time will tell. i have redistributed my first round of points, pulling 10 points from self and adding them to focus. once i get to 80 focus, i will pull some points from quickness, so he has 80's in both focus and self, and 6o's in both coord and strength.
i have yet to decide on a weapon of choice for hwa. part of me wants to spec spear, while part wants to just train a high damage weapon like sword or mace. axe would be a good choice if i didn't already have an axer who wasn't so much like hwa already.
as for pyung, he too is suffering the growing pains of not being able to inflict damage. so i am going to level him up so he is able to train and spec mace. pyung is pretty much a bug hunter to begin with, so mace will be a nice addition to his arsenal.
i have a guy named wendigo, who is an item only tank xbower with lockpick. he is a better template than my tank bower, with 100 startig focus and 10 strength, so he is a better healer, fletcher, and lockpicker. since he is essentially tonsihiki with an xbow, i am gonna redistribute tonishiki into a life archer.
first thing i will need to do is get him to 40th first so he has enough skill credits. since he is like 28th now, that will be a bit of a project.
then i need to pull points out of quickness and strength and put them into focus and self, then unspec bow and MeleeD, and untrian lore and lockpick, then train manaC, creature, and life magic, then finally, spec life magic.
at some point i will probably spec bow again once i get the credits.
another redistribution project will be to outfit hwa rang to be a better melee.
hwa was an OG UA, and his original template was 40 str, 80 coord, 50 quick, 10 end, 50 focus and 100 self.
this left him with a few holes:
1) his melee damage was pathetic.
2) his healing skill is also pathetic.
3) his magic skills are somewhat poor for a dual spec character of his level.
the melee damage is being addressed in two ways:
first, i spent 4 credits to strain spear. i could have spec'd UA with just two more, but i figured a higher base damage was more important at this point.
second: i am going to redistribute his attributes to support his other goals.
moy, my life axer, came after hwa, and was an attempt to compromise between my two UA characters, hwa and pyung. pyung is a 3school tank, so his melee is very strong, but he can't use his magic very well offensively. if pyung is hunting at his level he cannot land a debuff or a vuln, so his magic used pretty much just to buff or to recover between spawns. this is fine, and at the higher levels he will make a great hunter, especially when he trades UA for mace. moy is specc'd life magic and axe, so he can vuln and his axe skill is strong enough to hit without using debuffs. his template is a bit higher in strength, at the expense of a bit of magic. i would like to boost hwa's strength a bit, while keeping his magic skills roughly the same.
to do this, i will need to lower quickness and self a bit, while raising foucs and strength. pulling points out of self and putting them into focus, should boost his ability to heal, without adversely affecting his magic skills. i am hoping that the hit to meleeD won't be all that severe thanks to him using a shield, but only time will tell. i have redistributed my first round of points, pulling 10 points from self and adding them to focus. once i get to 80 focus, i will pull some points from quickness, so he has 80's in both focus and self, and 6o's in both coord and strength.
i have yet to decide on a weapon of choice for hwa. part of me wants to spec spear, while part wants to just train a high damage weapon like sword or mace. axe would be a good choice if i didn't already have an axer who wasn't so much like hwa already.
as for pyung, he too is suffering the growing pains of not being able to inflict damage. so i am going to level him up so he is able to train and spec mace. pyung is pretty much a bug hunter to begin with, so mace will be a nice addition to his arsenal.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
you are now level 50!
at the request of opti, my monarch, i have leveled one character to 50th. the original plan was for me to naihanchi, my lifemage, up to 50th so i could quest and stuff with the big dogs. in a twist i can only describe as bizarre, one of my newest characters, moy fa kuen, became the focus of this project.
opti wanted a melee for me to take on quests, so i took my highest one, moy, who has raced past the rest of the fam thanks to having two very active vassals, ki' lin and n'eko. now that he is 50th, i suppose i could hunt with higher level characters now, so XP will be easier to get.
i still want to level nai, and the rest of my crew so i have the right character for any given situation (melees, mages, lockpickers, archers, etc.) and of sufficient level to be useful.
moy was a good first choice, becuse he is both a life mage and an axer, so it's like having both a support mage, and a melee at 50th level. i have decided to expand the project a bit, and level him up to the point that he can cast level 7's, so he can be of use to others in the clan, as well as to my crew.
opti wanted a melee for me to take on quests, so i took my highest one, moy, who has raced past the rest of the fam thanks to having two very active vassals, ki' lin and n'eko. now that he is 50th, i suppose i could hunt with higher level characters now, so XP will be easier to get.
i still want to level nai, and the rest of my crew so i have the right character for any given situation (melees, mages, lockpickers, archers, etc.) and of sufficient level to be useful.
moy was a good first choice, becuse he is both a life mage and an axer, so it's like having both a support mage, and a melee at 50th level. i have decided to expand the project a bit, and level him up to the point that he can cast level 7's, so he can be of use to others in the clan, as well as to my crew.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
i hate other players
it's no secret that anyone who is not a member of my monarchy sucks absolutley. see, other players (those who are not my friends) are complete jerks. except for the people who are wankers.
sunday, i was playing my warmage, kablammus. blammus is 18th level, which is a rough time for a young mage. he is casting level 3 buffs, and just became 4 schooled. so he isn't exactly a powerhouse.
at this stage of his life, there are only a handful of monsters that he can fight which are powerful enough to yield decent XP, but no so powerful that he cannot solo them. those creatures are low level olthoi.
so rather than hunt the first floors of the arcade, i took him to do the first two pincer runs. he got the harvester pincer with only a few deaths, and so he was going to hit the dark lair for the gardener pincer. i am not fond of this place because it is the first stop for many powerlevellers. i am just getting started when i run into two guys, one on his way in, an 11th level guy, and one on his way out, some 20 something archer. the 11th level guy asks someone to help him get his pincer. i agree and we make our way down, i imperil stuff and he kills it. he's buffed with 7's so it's not like my level 2 imperils are going to help a whole lot, but maybe i can revit him or heal or something.
so the 20something follows us back down and says "back off i was here first!"
and i was like, "no worries, it's not like there is a shortage of bugs"
and we set about killing stuff. meanwhile some level 70 guy shows up and blows everything away with some ring spell. the 70's guy says he found the pincer.
so i offer the 20 something archer to grab it if he wants it, and he says "don't need it i already got one"
and i think to myself "then why are you here? you can get more and bigger bugs in the arcade, which is like 3 clicks from here, and far less camped. but whatever."
so i offer the 11th level guy to take it. he is appearantly not listening or something and 20something has taken offense at my suggestion that we share, and says:
"do you want to settle this? go PKL and i will blow your brians out."
he says some other crap and then goes PKL.
i figure this has to be a joke, so i say "you forgot to call me a newb and an ebayer"
and he says "well, it's not like it isn't true."
and then i realize that this guy is totally serious. he actually wants to fight over bugs that spawn every 3 minutes.
that is why i think PKL should be a bannable offense. only jerks and wankers PKL and if you do it's practically admitting that you are one, and need to be banned.
sunday, i was playing my warmage, kablammus. blammus is 18th level, which is a rough time for a young mage. he is casting level 3 buffs, and just became 4 schooled. so he isn't exactly a powerhouse.
at this stage of his life, there are only a handful of monsters that he can fight which are powerful enough to yield decent XP, but no so powerful that he cannot solo them. those creatures are low level olthoi.
so rather than hunt the first floors of the arcade, i took him to do the first two pincer runs. he got the harvester pincer with only a few deaths, and so he was going to hit the dark lair for the gardener pincer. i am not fond of this place because it is the first stop for many powerlevellers. i am just getting started when i run into two guys, one on his way in, an 11th level guy, and one on his way out, some 20 something archer. the 11th level guy asks someone to help him get his pincer. i agree and we make our way down, i imperil stuff and he kills it. he's buffed with 7's so it's not like my level 2 imperils are going to help a whole lot, but maybe i can revit him or heal or something.
so the 20something follows us back down and says "back off i was here first!"
and i was like, "no worries, it's not like there is a shortage of bugs"
and we set about killing stuff. meanwhile some level 70 guy shows up and blows everything away with some ring spell. the 70's guy says he found the pincer.
so i offer the 20 something archer to grab it if he wants it, and he says "don't need it i already got one"
and i think to myself "then why are you here? you can get more and bigger bugs in the arcade, which is like 3 clicks from here, and far less camped. but whatever."
so i offer the 11th level guy to take it. he is appearantly not listening or something and 20something has taken offense at my suggestion that we share, and says:
"do you want to settle this? go PKL and i will blow your brians out."
he says some other crap and then goes PKL.
i figure this has to be a joke, so i say "you forgot to call me a newb and an ebayer"
and he says "well, it's not like it isn't true."
and then i realize that this guy is totally serious. he actually wants to fight over bugs that spawn every 3 minutes.
that is why i think PKL should be a bannable offense. only jerks and wankers PKL and if you do it's practically admitting that you are one, and need to be banned.
Friday, July 09, 2004
When stupidity attacks
nom and i were hunting last nite on the banidt road between neydisa castle and bandit castle.
this is a really long run full of critters that are 60th to 90th level. in typical fashion for he and i, we used no buffs but those we provided our selves (no buff bot action for us thankyouverymuch) and proceeded to pwn everything around us, right up until we died.
i was running naihanchi, my lifemage, while nom was running ki' lin, his swordie. nai pretty much imperiled and vulned stuff while ki cut it into little pieces.
the first death came courtesy of a pack of L85 magma golems. there were 3 of them, with one of them on a fast spawn. i tossed some imps around with some difficulty, and all 3 of them set about the rather laborious task of bashing ki into tiny bits. for some stupid reason, i started friing frost bolts at these guys (presumably to kill one off so ki only had to deal with 2 instead of 3) and i negelected to heal or revitalize ki. he got a lethal dose of flamin hot golem love and a one way ticket back to the lifestone.
so now nai is alone with the two remaining golems, draining like mad to keep his fluids up, when a 4th golem spawns, probably the rather quick respawn of the one ki killed. it was tough but nai managed to clear all the golems alone (thanks to his leet draining skills) and i had enough time to top off, grab ki's stuff, and fight some undead while ki made the rather long run back to where he died. i even fought another spawn of magmas (4 in all) before ki returned.
when ki finally gets back, everything has spawned again and we are actively fighting the undead, more golems, and i think even a crystal golem. we make it thru probably one whole spawn, and are looping around to another when suddenly nai has gotten low on health, stamina, and mana. he is also out of stamina potions, and is failing to land heals with his last treated healing kit. he tried to run for safety and was dead a few seconds later.
so now ki is clearing badguys from nai's bod as i make the run back. and since we were stupid and didn't move from the center of the rather large spawn that killed ki in the first place, he is alone while i make my way there.
so now we are reunited, and we kill more stuff, and decide to continue on to neydisa castle. now we are making our way west, seriously far from the bandit castle drop that takes us so long to run from.
this time we get both get killed by something, i don't really remember what it was, and decide this time to head from neydissa to our bods instead of from the bandit castle drop.
as we make out way to the bods, we pick a fight with a crystal before i am buffed, which is pretty stupid, but is compunded my the fact that i decided to start buffing, instead of supporting ki. and surprise surprise, ki is dead.
fortunately we are like 20 paces from the manor portal drop, so he is back with me before i finish buffing. we kill the crystal (whom i could not land a single imp, vuln, or drain on) get ki's corpse and head east to the bods.
i should probably mention here that is is going on 5am now, so the sudden increase in stupidity could very well be attributed to exhaustion. i am litterally dozing off at the keyboard and wandered really far off course, leaving ki to get killed where he stopped to pick up a dye plant. the deathtoll is really getting out of hand.
so i tell ki to get his most recent corpse, and i will head to the ones we were trying to get to. i make it there by the skin of my teeth to find that a runed chest has spawned right were our corpses are. you the runed chest? yeah, guarded by 3 level 105 lugians and some big ass manouga. i ask ki if he lost anything important and he says yes, my sword of frozen fury.
at this point i have no idea what to do. my buffs are up, and it's a 20 minute run back here from the manor drop.
so i buff again, baned everything including my genitalia, plus a light weight buckler and a high meleeD nekode that i use to recover corpses. i don't really fight with the nekode so much as take advantage of the meleeD bonus and the shield while i loot my bod.
so i make one run for ki's bod. these are luggies, with hollow rocks. so i run right for the center and circle around them to make them switch from rock mode to melee mode. this works, and i have only swallowed a couple of their hollow boulders.
so i open ki's corpse, looting like a mad man. i get his gear and run like hell, out running the last guy with only 14 health remaining. i double check the gear and see no sword of frozen fury. i send ki a tell about it but he mist be busy cuz he doesn't answer.
now there is my bod left. i heal up and top off my fuilds and make my run. i grab all my DIs and run for safety, just to catch a rock to the skull from 100 yards out.
now i am back at the lifestone, with about half of my death items and half of ki's sitting on a fresh corpse. i am bleary eyed at this point, and i could care less about mine DIs. ki responds to the tell that the SoFF was on the bod he lost whle picking dye plants, so my motivation to retrieve DIs is now at an all time low.
so i permit ki, who is almost to the corpse site. he makes the run for my last bod and somehow manages to grab everything. we meet back at the rithwic lifestone and i give him some of his items and call it a night.
despite the needless death, it was still a productive night. nai made 46th level and was able to dump 2 milion XP into magic defense, and as always a good time was had by all.
this is a really long run full of critters that are 60th to 90th level. in typical fashion for he and i, we used no buffs but those we provided our selves (no buff bot action for us thankyouverymuch) and proceeded to pwn everything around us, right up until we died.
i was running naihanchi, my lifemage, while nom was running ki' lin, his swordie. nai pretty much imperiled and vulned stuff while ki cut it into little pieces.
the first death came courtesy of a pack of L85 magma golems. there were 3 of them, with one of them on a fast spawn. i tossed some imps around with some difficulty, and all 3 of them set about the rather laborious task of bashing ki into tiny bits. for some stupid reason, i started friing frost bolts at these guys (presumably to kill one off so ki only had to deal with 2 instead of 3) and i negelected to heal or revitalize ki. he got a lethal dose of flamin hot golem love and a one way ticket back to the lifestone.
so now nai is alone with the two remaining golems, draining like mad to keep his fluids up, when a 4th golem spawns, probably the rather quick respawn of the one ki killed. it was tough but nai managed to clear all the golems alone (thanks to his leet draining skills) and i had enough time to top off, grab ki's stuff, and fight some undead while ki made the rather long run back to where he died. i even fought another spawn of magmas (4 in all) before ki returned.
when ki finally gets back, everything has spawned again and we are actively fighting the undead, more golems, and i think even a crystal golem. we make it thru probably one whole spawn, and are looping around to another when suddenly nai has gotten low on health, stamina, and mana. he is also out of stamina potions, and is failing to land heals with his last treated healing kit. he tried to run for safety and was dead a few seconds later.
so now ki is clearing badguys from nai's bod as i make the run back. and since we were stupid and didn't move from the center of the rather large spawn that killed ki in the first place, he is alone while i make my way there.
so now we are reunited, and we kill more stuff, and decide to continue on to neydisa castle. now we are making our way west, seriously far from the bandit castle drop that takes us so long to run from.
this time we get both get killed by something, i don't really remember what it was, and decide this time to head from neydissa to our bods instead of from the bandit castle drop.
as we make out way to the bods, we pick a fight with a crystal before i am buffed, which is pretty stupid, but is compunded my the fact that i decided to start buffing, instead of supporting ki. and surprise surprise, ki is dead.
fortunately we are like 20 paces from the manor portal drop, so he is back with me before i finish buffing. we kill the crystal (whom i could not land a single imp, vuln, or drain on) get ki's corpse and head east to the bods.
i should probably mention here that is is going on 5am now, so the sudden increase in stupidity could very well be attributed to exhaustion. i am litterally dozing off at the keyboard and wandered really far off course, leaving ki to get killed where he stopped to pick up a dye plant. the deathtoll is really getting out of hand.
so i tell ki to get his most recent corpse, and i will head to the ones we were trying to get to. i make it there by the skin of my teeth to find that a runed chest has spawned right were our corpses are. you the runed chest? yeah, guarded by 3 level 105 lugians and some big ass manouga. i ask ki if he lost anything important and he says yes, my sword of frozen fury.
at this point i have no idea what to do. my buffs are up, and it's a 20 minute run back here from the manor drop.
so i buff again, baned everything including my genitalia, plus a light weight buckler and a high meleeD nekode that i use to recover corpses. i don't really fight with the nekode so much as take advantage of the meleeD bonus and the shield while i loot my bod.
so i make one run for ki's bod. these are luggies, with hollow rocks. so i run right for the center and circle around them to make them switch from rock mode to melee mode. this works, and i have only swallowed a couple of their hollow boulders.
so i open ki's corpse, looting like a mad man. i get his gear and run like hell, out running the last guy with only 14 health remaining. i double check the gear and see no sword of frozen fury. i send ki a tell about it but he mist be busy cuz he doesn't answer.
now there is my bod left. i heal up and top off my fuilds and make my run. i grab all my DIs and run for safety, just to catch a rock to the skull from 100 yards out.
now i am back at the lifestone, with about half of my death items and half of ki's sitting on a fresh corpse. i am bleary eyed at this point, and i could care less about mine DIs. ki responds to the tell that the SoFF was on the bod he lost whle picking dye plants, so my motivation to retrieve DIs is now at an all time low.
so i permit ki, who is almost to the corpse site. he makes the run for my last bod and somehow manages to grab everything. we meet back at the rithwic lifestone and i give him some of his items and call it a night.
despite the needless death, it was still a productive night. nai made 46th level and was able to dump 2 milion XP into magic defense, and as always a good time was had by all.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
template woes
i have long had issues with archer templates.
i can never seem to find one that is both playable and fun.
tonishiki has gone thru several iterations, starting witht he stock bowhunter template from turbine, 6 rerolls of different 3 school mage or tank templates, and finally coming full circle to finish with the stock bow hunter template from turbine.
i like bow and crossbow characters. being able to do real damage at range is a real bonus, especially when teamed with a tank who can keep monsters at bay and save me from getting womped on. i have only done this a few times, but the results were *awesome*.
i also would like a mage template that uses a bow or crossbow. those are among the hardest templates to play, in my opinion, since you end up with all of the liabilities fo being botha tank and a mage, without the shield or the cool spells.
anyway, nom has taken on another account, so i can fold some of his dudes in to my tree and some of mine in to his, and take to opportunity to reroll vampira, my xbow/dagger/life thing for the kerbillionth time.
this time around, i am going to make an item only xbow tank with lockpick, essentially, tonishiki with an xbow, or a one school version of ratspike. his template has served me well, and thanks to the 4 extra credits i will get for taking xbow, i will be able to spec magicD at 40th, which was my original plan for tonishiki, but he is going to go in another direction.
i am going to redo tonishiki as a life archer, only this time, i am not going to reroll him. instead, i am going to get him to 40th and then use the skill spec/buyback quests to move him to the life archer template.
the tank template is the only one i have had any real success with on an archer, and i am hoping to sidestep some of the problems i have had with starting bowcaster templates by "starting" at 40th, and essentially template complete. i need to untrain/unspec a bunch of skills, and move a bunch of attribute points, but with a little patience i should be able to finally have my coveted bowcaster. my plan is to move bow and meleeD to trianed, dump lockpick, lore, and fletching, then train creature, life, and manaC then to specialize life magic. on the attribute front, i want to pull the creation points from strength and quickness and put them in to focus and self. i don't know how well this is going to work, but it is worth trying since shiki is now part of the survivor's rank tree cannot simply be rerolled.
he will need to be 3 schooled now, since i will be taking all his gear to give to vampira's reroll once i him/her rolled.
i can never seem to find one that is both playable and fun.
tonishiki has gone thru several iterations, starting witht he stock bowhunter template from turbine, 6 rerolls of different 3 school mage or tank templates, and finally coming full circle to finish with the stock bow hunter template from turbine.
i like bow and crossbow characters. being able to do real damage at range is a real bonus, especially when teamed with a tank who can keep monsters at bay and save me from getting womped on. i have only done this a few times, but the results were *awesome*.
i also would like a mage template that uses a bow or crossbow. those are among the hardest templates to play, in my opinion, since you end up with all of the liabilities fo being botha tank and a mage, without the shield or the cool spells.
anyway, nom has taken on another account, so i can fold some of his dudes in to my tree and some of mine in to his, and take to opportunity to reroll vampira, my xbow/dagger/life thing for the kerbillionth time.
this time around, i am going to make an item only xbow tank with lockpick, essentially, tonishiki with an xbow, or a one school version of ratspike. his template has served me well, and thanks to the 4 extra credits i will get for taking xbow, i will be able to spec magicD at 40th, which was my original plan for tonishiki, but he is going to go in another direction.
i am going to redo tonishiki as a life archer, only this time, i am not going to reroll him. instead, i am going to get him to 40th and then use the skill spec/buyback quests to move him to the life archer template.
the tank template is the only one i have had any real success with on an archer, and i am hoping to sidestep some of the problems i have had with starting bowcaster templates by "starting" at 40th, and essentially template complete. i need to untrain/unspec a bunch of skills, and move a bunch of attribute points, but with a little patience i should be able to finally have my coveted bowcaster. my plan is to move bow and meleeD to trianed, dump lockpick, lore, and fletching, then train creature, life, and manaC then to specialize life magic. on the attribute front, i want to pull the creation points from strength and quickness and put them in to focus and self. i don't know how well this is going to work, but it is worth trying since shiki is now part of the survivor's rank tree cannot simply be rerolled.
he will need to be 3 schooled now, since i will be taking all his gear to give to vampira's reroll once i him/her rolled.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
the adventures of ratspike
ratspike is my dagger tank. he is cool cuz he is an exceptional tank. nom has a dagger tank as well and i like calling them "the dagger twins" cuz for a while they both used dirks and superior shields (yeah, the shield with the level 4 sword buff... it was a step up from the explorer buckler he was using previously). we want to hunt our daggers with one of opti's low level chars, a battle mage i think, but to do that we both have to be 32.
a few nights ago, nom and i made a couple of trips to the scalavs citadel. contrary to my usual playstyle, we got some level 7 buffs and went *NUTS*. we made it all the way to the bottom and put on like 6 levels (rat started at 24, and hit 30 before the trip was thru) he died once. with that rather large piece of the level 32 goal out of the way (another motivator for 32 was the 12th skill credit i'd need for life magic) so last nite i decided to hunt alone, using just my item and jewelry buffs.
i tried the lugain cit for one buff, and it was ok. i have hunted probably a dozen characters there from 15th to 30th level, so while it's great fun with a friend, it's just not that great alone. i also tried to solo the scalavus citadel, and while i could take on two of the big guys at once, i couldn't kill them quickly enough to go too far in.
it was then that i decided to hit the arcade. i was using the quiddity dagger that pandy gave me when she cleaned out all her mules and trying to get enough XP to double tap with it. i had baned everything, popped a lugian gem of acid protection, and i was ready to go to work on the bugs when i found that they had trouble hitting me. in time i was on the drone floor, casually stomping bugs. i ran out of stamina potions a while ago. and i was making big progress even tho my banes had gone and i was sort of chatting with opti and keeping my stamina up by fizzling out revit1 with my explorer life wand.
i was getting ready to recall out so i could focus on chatting, when a bunch of young dudes came thru and added me to their fellowship. normally i say "no thanks" because dudes in the arcade are buffed to hell and back and just roll down to the worker floor and camp the 12 bugs that live down there rather than trying to work their way around the arcade. well, these guys were all lower than me, and couldn't stay together too well. so i went on, killing away on the different floors, including the worker floor, with this dude named "pleasure toy" tagging along. i gave the central part a try, and rat's not quite ready to solo there just yet.
well the XP came pouring in, and i kept tossing it into my coord, quick, dagger, and focus skills. before i knew it, i had killed tons of bugs, hit 32nd, trained life magic, and pushed my dagger up high enough to double tap with my quiddy.
so now ratspike has sex appeal. he can cast his own protects (yeah they're just level 3's for now, but that's gonna change real soon) and when he hit's 40th he'll dump lore for creature magic and be 3 schooled. his dagger and meleeD are pretty high for a dude in his low 30's and not getting hit by level 40 something olthoi is really nice. what's funny to note is that he doesn't get touched by most drones or servants, but if he goes to the arcade central, he has issues with the workers. so he either eats olthoi for beakfast, or becomes breakfast himself. i figure he needs better buffs, time to get critter :-)
a few nights ago, nom and i made a couple of trips to the scalavs citadel. contrary to my usual playstyle, we got some level 7 buffs and went *NUTS*. we made it all the way to the bottom and put on like 6 levels (rat started at 24, and hit 30 before the trip was thru) he died once. with that rather large piece of the level 32 goal out of the way (another motivator for 32 was the 12th skill credit i'd need for life magic) so last nite i decided to hunt alone, using just my item and jewelry buffs.
i tried the lugain cit for one buff, and it was ok. i have hunted probably a dozen characters there from 15th to 30th level, so while it's great fun with a friend, it's just not that great alone. i also tried to solo the scalavus citadel, and while i could take on two of the big guys at once, i couldn't kill them quickly enough to go too far in.
it was then that i decided to hit the arcade. i was using the quiddity dagger that pandy gave me when she cleaned out all her mules and trying to get enough XP to double tap with it. i had baned everything, popped a lugian gem of acid protection, and i was ready to go to work on the bugs when i found that they had trouble hitting me. in time i was on the drone floor, casually stomping bugs. i ran out of stamina potions a while ago. and i was making big progress even tho my banes had gone and i was sort of chatting with opti and keeping my stamina up by fizzling out revit1 with my explorer life wand.
i was getting ready to recall out so i could focus on chatting, when a bunch of young dudes came thru and added me to their fellowship. normally i say "no thanks" because dudes in the arcade are buffed to hell and back and just roll down to the worker floor and camp the 12 bugs that live down there rather than trying to work their way around the arcade. well, these guys were all lower than me, and couldn't stay together too well. so i went on, killing away on the different floors, including the worker floor, with this dude named "pleasure toy" tagging along. i gave the central part a try, and rat's not quite ready to solo there just yet.
well the XP came pouring in, and i kept tossing it into my coord, quick, dagger, and focus skills. before i knew it, i had killed tons of bugs, hit 32nd, trained life magic, and pushed my dagger up high enough to double tap with my quiddy.
so now ratspike has sex appeal. he can cast his own protects (yeah they're just level 3's for now, but that's gonna change real soon) and when he hit's 40th he'll dump lore for creature magic and be 3 schooled. his dagger and meleeD are pretty high for a dude in his low 30's and not getting hit by level 40 something olthoi is really nice. what's funny to note is that he doesn't get touched by most drones or servants, but if he goes to the arcade central, he has issues with the workers. so he either eats olthoi for beakfast, or becomes breakfast himself. i figure he needs better buffs, time to get critter :-)
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
recycled posts
i am recycling some of my big posts from other boards here in an attempt to fill this page with some content. i won't include the replies and stuff, but i will include links to the boards here if you want to read the flames that ensue from my posts.
the children of hope board (aka CH and PH)
solclaim survivors
the children of hope board (aka CH and PH)
solclaim survivors
RECYCLED: lugs and bugs and death
another recycle from the survivors board about hunting with nom
last night was a classic example of hunting with me and nomadic.
nomadic and i were hunting our new dagger toons (ramy, l23 and ratspike, l21) at the hills citadel last night. in true chis and nom fashion, ratspike (chris) ran off at the speed of light, unbuffed in his explorer society armor, and ramy (nomadic) got killed in the worst possible spot.
it seems that the Wasteland Rat Association of Dereth was having it's annual banquet in the area surrounding the hills cit portal, and they were serving Braised Dagger Toon as the main course.
so while ramy was getting buffed to recover her corpse, ratspike finished the run to the cit, tied to the portal, and tried to sneak back to ramy's corpse. ratspike stood no chace against a single wasteland rat, let alone the dozen or more in the surrounding area (along with raveners, and some 70+ undead). so he outran the stuff that was chasing him and snuck past the rats, "metal gear solid" style, and was able to get to ramy's corpse unliquified.
with the corpse problem taken care of, ramy was free to run like hell to the cit. once they two joined up at the front of the cit, they set about killing all the luggies.
true to form, the actual dungeon crawl was not nearly as scary as the run to the dungeon. after one hour, one death (ratspike), a couple of levels, and a few close calls, ramy and ratspike we ready to head back to rith to sell and resupply.
it was at this point that we were asked by a young axer named dante the wanderer (possibly one of wels' extended family, the wanderers) to help him recover his corpse just outside of nanto. dante was a very new player, on his third day of playing AC, and was glad to have our assitance.
upon arriving on the scene, we discovered that the corpse was camped by grievvers (the level 50+ variety). ramy and ratspike took turns leading the spiders away from the corpse, and we actually managed to kill one. dante got his stuff back, and was eager to join us on our next suicide mission.
what better way to teach a young player about death and glory, than to visit the olthoi arcade?
so we set off for ML, showing dante how to outfit himself to hunt bugs. we made good progress thru the first two floors and were fighting drones within minutes. i checked the fellowships vital signs, and everyone is low on health, so i start yealling in fellow ship chat to heal. dante is healing like a madman but litterally cannot land a heal to save his life. i told him to run, and i ran after him to try to heal him, but he was dead before i could get to him..
so ramy and ratspike are not only surrounded now, but also separated. they are trying to break thru the wall of bugs that searates them, but being daggers, both toons are great survivors but decidedly lacking in the damage department, especially without an axer. every bug on the floor has taken a number and is waiting in line to come wail on us, and i end up biting it not long after.
now ramy is alone on the drone floor, and i am hustling dante back to the arcade. no time to sell, no time to rearm, just get back down to help ramy.
the fellowship chat went like this:
ramy: guys, i am hating life down here.
rat: ok, we need to get down to ramy, so don't stop to kill anything unless it's blocking the way.
dante: ok
ramy: a little help...
rat: use the gems i gave you to get your protects up
ramy: are you there god? it's me... ramy.
so we get back down to ramy who is valiantly fighting all the drones on the floor, plus all the harvesters and gardeners that dante and i dragged with us. it was a green acid bloodbath.
and just like before date fails all his heal attempts and runs upstairs... i run after him, hoping to heal but he gets clipped by a gardener half way to the exit portal. ramy clears a path and is able to join me and we clear the second corpse and grab all dant'es gear.
it is now appearant that dante's healing skill *sucks*. he had poured a ton of xp into it, i gave him some treated kits, and he still can't land one, so i decide we need to get him a healing buff like a raeta's necklace, and possibly some counseling for his "perfomance anxiety". i get all of dante's corpses, but not before dropping half of dante's death items on my new corpse, and i think ramy died as well. it turns out we are too powerful for the raeta's quest (or so we heard) so i just gave dante the raeta's necklace that my archer wears.
at this point each corpse recovery attempt has resulted in at least one new corpse, so it is time to change tactics.
so i log ratspike out, and log janus in. she drops some uber level 5 buffage on ramy and dante and accompanies them to the arcade, imperiling bugs back to the stoneage and healing and revitalizing the melees as they lay waste to everything. we have all the corpses cleared and recovered in like 3 minutes, and finally, justice has been served.
afterwards, while we are hanging out at the rith LS goofing around with emotes, dante tells us that he learned a lot, and that was the most fun he has had playing so far. obviously he needs to get out more
the moral of the story:
for a good time: call ramy.
last night was a classic example of hunting with me and nomadic.
nomadic and i were hunting our new dagger toons (ramy, l23 and ratspike, l21) at the hills citadel last night. in true chis and nom fashion, ratspike (chris) ran off at the speed of light, unbuffed in his explorer society armor, and ramy (nomadic) got killed in the worst possible spot.
it seems that the Wasteland Rat Association of Dereth was having it's annual banquet in the area surrounding the hills cit portal, and they were serving Braised Dagger Toon as the main course.
so while ramy was getting buffed to recover her corpse, ratspike finished the run to the cit, tied to the portal, and tried to sneak back to ramy's corpse. ratspike stood no chace against a single wasteland rat, let alone the dozen or more in the surrounding area (along with raveners, and some 70+ undead). so he outran the stuff that was chasing him and snuck past the rats, "metal gear solid" style, and was able to get to ramy's corpse unliquified.
with the corpse problem taken care of, ramy was free to run like hell to the cit. once they two joined up at the front of the cit, they set about killing all the luggies.
true to form, the actual dungeon crawl was not nearly as scary as the run to the dungeon. after one hour, one death (ratspike), a couple of levels, and a few close calls, ramy and ratspike we ready to head back to rith to sell and resupply.
it was at this point that we were asked by a young axer named dante the wanderer (possibly one of wels' extended family, the wanderers) to help him recover his corpse just outside of nanto. dante was a very new player, on his third day of playing AC, and was glad to have our assitance.
upon arriving on the scene, we discovered that the corpse was camped by grievvers (the level 50+ variety). ramy and ratspike took turns leading the spiders away from the corpse, and we actually managed to kill one. dante got his stuff back, and was eager to join us on our next suicide mission.
what better way to teach a young player about death and glory, than to visit the olthoi arcade?
so we set off for ML, showing dante how to outfit himself to hunt bugs. we made good progress thru the first two floors and were fighting drones within minutes. i checked the fellowships vital signs, and everyone is low on health, so i start yealling in fellow ship chat to heal. dante is healing like a madman but litterally cannot land a heal to save his life. i told him to run, and i ran after him to try to heal him, but he was dead before i could get to him..
so ramy and ratspike are not only surrounded now, but also separated. they are trying to break thru the wall of bugs that searates them, but being daggers, both toons are great survivors but decidedly lacking in the damage department, especially without an axer. every bug on the floor has taken a number and is waiting in line to come wail on us, and i end up biting it not long after.
now ramy is alone on the drone floor, and i am hustling dante back to the arcade. no time to sell, no time to rearm, just get back down to help ramy.
the fellowship chat went like this:
ramy: guys, i am hating life down here.
rat: ok, we need to get down to ramy, so don't stop to kill anything unless it's blocking the way.
dante: ok
ramy: a little help...
rat: use the gems i gave you to get your protects up
ramy: are you there god? it's me... ramy.
so we get back down to ramy who is valiantly fighting all the drones on the floor, plus all the harvesters and gardeners that dante and i dragged with us. it was a green acid bloodbath.
and just like before date fails all his heal attempts and runs upstairs... i run after him, hoping to heal but he gets clipped by a gardener half way to the exit portal. ramy clears a path and is able to join me and we clear the second corpse and grab all dant'es gear.
it is now appearant that dante's healing skill *sucks*. he had poured a ton of xp into it, i gave him some treated kits, and he still can't land one, so i decide we need to get him a healing buff like a raeta's necklace, and possibly some counseling for his "perfomance anxiety". i get all of dante's corpses, but not before dropping half of dante's death items on my new corpse, and i think ramy died as well. it turns out we are too powerful for the raeta's quest (or so we heard) so i just gave dante the raeta's necklace that my archer wears.
at this point each corpse recovery attempt has resulted in at least one new corpse, so it is time to change tactics.
so i log ratspike out, and log janus in. she drops some uber level 5 buffage on ramy and dante and accompanies them to the arcade, imperiling bugs back to the stoneage and healing and revitalizing the melees as they lay waste to everything. we have all the corpses cleared and recovered in like 3 minutes, and finally, justice has been served.
afterwards, while we are hanging out at the rith LS goofing around with emotes, dante tells us that he learned a lot, and that was the most fun he has had playing so far. obviously he needs to get out more
the moral of the story:
for a good time: call ramy.
RECYCLED: the neffy-poo
here are some excerpts from some posts about my girlfriend's nephew playing some on my account... a mistake i do not intend to duplicate.
pandy's nephew stayed with us this weekend and he played a bunch of my characters. we discussed at length the protocol for playing my characters (I.E. not doing anything embarassing or stupid), but it would appear that i may not have gotten thru.
he is young and can't believe none of my characters are over 50th, so he took it upon himself to powerlevel as many of them as possible, in order to save me from some sort of imaginary consequence. i think he is under the impression that if you don't max a character out in the shortest possible time something bad happen to them, or maybe that it will happen to me, i'm not sure.
maybe he thinks the newb police will come and put me in AC jail for failing to hit 50th level in the required 12 hour period. it is true that i have been summoned to testify before the newb court in the past, about why my 3 40th level characters are currently living in phyntos menace grinding their way to 90th, but after explaining the fact that i actually like to play a variety of characters, they granted me special permission to just play the game. i had a really good lawyer tho who found a loophole for me.
regardless of the reason why, he doesn't know how to do anything without hitting a buffbot first (including visit the marketplace), so my apologies if he cleaned everyone out of comps or if he drove you crazy begging for buffs or anything else, please let me know so i can make amends (and then go throttle him )
it was really cute watching him try to hunt my characters in thier ususal hunting grounds and get them killed, even when they were uber buffed:
the conversation went like this:
nephew: don't be a gimp, you should get level 7's from a bot so you can get bigtime XP.
chris: i could, but i'd rather learn to play my characters with their own buffs, that way i actually learn how to play them.
nephew: whatever, newb, i have a level 73 UA on my server i am a better player than you. let me show you how it's done.
[tusker liberator kills you so swiftly even the lifestone shudders]
chris: wow, you are really good, i usually hunt for 20 minutes or so before i get waffled like that, but you got your face pushed in within seconds. and to think i have been wasting all these hours hunting at my level when i can just go to alphus lassel and get killed within minutes, thanks for the tip.
nephew: you're so funny. i wouldn't have gotten killed but i kept fizzling these level 7's cuz your mage stinks.
chris: funny, he cast levels 5's just fine, plus he has bolts for all 7 damage types and the vulns to go with them, that seems to be more effective than fizzling crushing shame over and over and getting eaten by tuskers. of course i am not l33t, so i wouldn't know.
nephew: laugh it up, you're gonna need those level 7's to hunt in VOD.
chris: wow, dying a gory death in VOD, that would prove your leetness once and for all. maybe you can get him killed somewhere really nasty so you need my whole allegiance to help you recover the corpse. once you get out of the hospital you could laugh in my face.
nephew: *after* i get out of the hospital?
chris: yeah, cuz if you get one of my characters killed by doing something stupid like that, i'm gonna break every bone in your puny little body. TWICE.
pandy's nephew stayed with us this weekend and he played a bunch of my characters. we discussed at length the protocol for playing my characters (I.E. not doing anything embarassing or stupid), but it would appear that i may not have gotten thru.
he is young and can't believe none of my characters are over 50th, so he took it upon himself to powerlevel as many of them as possible, in order to save me from some sort of imaginary consequence. i think he is under the impression that if you don't max a character out in the shortest possible time something bad happen to them, or maybe that it will happen to me, i'm not sure.
maybe he thinks the newb police will come and put me in AC jail for failing to hit 50th level in the required 12 hour period. it is true that i have been summoned to testify before the newb court in the past, about why my 3 40th level characters are currently living in phyntos menace grinding their way to 90th, but after explaining the fact that i actually like to play a variety of characters, they granted me special permission to just play the game. i had a really good lawyer tho who found a loophole for me.
regardless of the reason why, he doesn't know how to do anything without hitting a buffbot first (including visit the marketplace), so my apologies if he cleaned everyone out of comps or if he drove you crazy begging for buffs or anything else, please let me know so i can make amends (and then go throttle him )
it was really cute watching him try to hunt my characters in thier ususal hunting grounds and get them killed, even when they were uber buffed:
the conversation went like this:
nephew: don't be a gimp, you should get level 7's from a bot so you can get bigtime XP.
chris: i could, but i'd rather learn to play my characters with their own buffs, that way i actually learn how to play them.
nephew: whatever, newb, i have a level 73 UA on my server i am a better player than you. let me show you how it's done.
[tusker liberator kills you so swiftly even the lifestone shudders]
chris: wow, you are really good, i usually hunt for 20 minutes or so before i get waffled like that, but you got your face pushed in within seconds. and to think i have been wasting all these hours hunting at my level when i can just go to alphus lassel and get killed within minutes, thanks for the tip.
nephew: you're so funny. i wouldn't have gotten killed but i kept fizzling these level 7's cuz your mage stinks.
chris: funny, he cast levels 5's just fine, plus he has bolts for all 7 damage types and the vulns to go with them, that seems to be more effective than fizzling crushing shame over and over and getting eaten by tuskers. of course i am not l33t, so i wouldn't know.
nephew: laugh it up, you're gonna need those level 7's to hunt in VOD.
chris: wow, dying a gory death in VOD, that would prove your leetness once and for all. maybe you can get him killed somewhere really nasty so you need my whole allegiance to help you recover the corpse. once you get out of the hospital you could laugh in my face.
nephew: *after* i get out of the hospital?
chris: yeah, cuz if you get one of my characters killed by doing something stupid like that, i'm gonna break every bone in your puny little body. TWICE.
RECYCLED: fun with bugs
another recycle from the survivors board about the 40+ olthoi armor quest
everyone took pity on naihanchi who lost his armor in a tragic mountain climbing accident, and took him to get a set of 40+ olthoi armor.
hagan the hardy, shu tzu, opti and goldenthorn went. naihanchi was the guest of honor but was unable to affect a single bug with either spells or harsh language. so all he did was heal people and revitalize them, and on one occasion walk into the wrong room and drag a second olthoi brood queen over to the group while they had their hands full with the first one. as if fighting one wasn't challenging enough
it went somethng like this:
hagan: what was that blur that flew by us?
shu: i think it was naihanchi, he is certainly in a hurry
hagan: where's the fire naihanchi?
naihachi: b-b-bug... B-B-BUG!
shu: don't be silly there are bugs all over the... OMFGWTFBBQ!!!
hagan: eek! it's another queen!
[combat ensues]
shu: nai, if you're not terribly busy watching us get pounded on BY TWO QUEENS, do you think you could imperil something?
olthoi brood matron resists your spell
olthoi brood matron resists your spell
olthoi eviscerator resists your spell
olthoi eviscerator resists your spell
olthoi egg resists your spell
ugly olthoi step child resists your spell
you cast imperil other V on hagan the hardy
naihanchi: w00t! i landed one! pheer meh!
hagan: oh yeah... i'm afraid... every time i walk into a dungeon with you.
just kidding, a good time was had by all and naihachi looks dead sexy in his new armor
thanks again guys!
everyone took pity on naihanchi who lost his armor in a tragic mountain climbing accident, and took him to get a set of 40+ olthoi armor.
hagan the hardy, shu tzu, opti and goldenthorn went. naihanchi was the guest of honor but was unable to affect a single bug with either spells or harsh language. so all he did was heal people and revitalize them, and on one occasion walk into the wrong room and drag a second olthoi brood queen over to the group while they had their hands full with the first one. as if fighting one wasn't challenging enough
it went somethng like this:
hagan: what was that blur that flew by us?
shu: i think it was naihanchi, he is certainly in a hurry
hagan: where's the fire naihanchi?
naihachi: b-b-bug... B-B-BUG!
shu: don't be silly there are bugs all over the... OMFGWTFBBQ!!!
hagan: eek! it's another queen!
[combat ensues]
shu: nai, if you're not terribly busy watching us get pounded on BY TWO QUEENS, do you think you could imperil something?
olthoi brood matron resists your spell
olthoi brood matron resists your spell
olthoi eviscerator resists your spell
olthoi eviscerator resists your spell
olthoi egg resists your spell
ugly olthoi step child resists your spell
you cast imperil other V on hagan the hardy
naihanchi: w00t! i landed one! pheer meh!
hagan: oh yeah... i'm afraid... every time i walk into a dungeon with you.
just kidding, a good time was had by all and naihachi looks dead sexy in his new armor
thanks again guys!
RECYCLED: playing the no war OG mage
this post is recycled from the survivor boards. it is an update to this vn boards post on a template called the "martyr mage". i should mention that the no war OG stuff below is by me, but the martyr mage guide on the vn thing is not by me.
also known as the martyr mage, the vitamancer, or the war cleric, the no-war OG is a very challenging, and in my opinion, one of the funnest mage templates to play.
is life without war magic the life for me?
if your chief complaint about playing a mage is fluid management (keeping your health, stamina and mana at usable levels), or you are still cheesed about the great nerfing of all drains, then this is not the template for you.
if you are looking for the ultimate in challenging templates, you are bored with blowing things to bits with your battle mage, or wish there was someone to provide support for your hunting expeditions, this template might be worth checking out.
why on earth would i do this to a mage?
1)to learn the intricacies of fluid management: playing a no war og for 30 levels is like getting a doctorate degree and a blackbelt in fluid management. once you get the hang of the no-war og, keeping your fluids topped off on your battle mage or war caster will seem like child's play.
2)because sucking the life out of monsters and spitting it back at them is gross... but surprisingly fun.
3)after taking so long to kill monsters, using war magic again will make you feel like a god.
so what do i do?
there are only two hard fast rules for rolling your no war OG:
first you need to spec life magic. it is your first line of offense, and your first line of defense, so you want your life magic skill to be as high as possible. you will use protects to keep you from sustaining damage, drains to weaken your enemy and recover your fluids, and lifebolts to kill your enemies.
second, don't take war magic. if you take war magic, you can't really call yourself a no war OG. if you think a mage isn't a mage without war magic, this is not the template for you.
what about attributes?
that is a matter of preference, but you will generally want to max out focus and self and favor endurance over strength. the higher your health, the more damage you can do with lifebolts and drains, and stamina will serve as the reserve for both health and mana.
here are some good starting examples:
balanced: 40 str, 50 end, 10 cor, 20 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
aggressive: 30 str, 70 end, 10 cor, 10 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
extreme: 10 str, 100 end, 10 cor, 10 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
for my no-war OG, i went with 100's for endurance, focus and self.
as you decide between strength and endurance you are essentially choosing between armor and firepower. more endurance means more health and stamina, harder hitting lifebolts, higher capacity for draining, and more reserves to be converted to mana. more strength means armor and possibly the ability to melee. armor will help protect you, but so will your life protects. you may want to get a set of lighter armor and then bane it to make up the difference in AL. also, losing health just a fact of life for the no-war og. if you get hit, just drain it back, that ought to teach them not to hit you.
ok, what skills should i take?
to be a no war OG, the only skill you must have is life magic. spec'ing creature is worth considering for a number reasons, but your main one will be magic yield, since having your lifebolts and drains resisted will get you killed quickly.
not taking war magic leaves you in a unique position. you are a mage, with all the assets and liabilities that go with it, but you have an extra 16 credits at creation. with those extra credits you could do one of the following:
1) specialize a bunch of other mage stuff: like critter, manaC, magicD, or lore
2) train a bunch of other not-exactly-mage stuff (attributes permitting): like lockpick, meleeD, or even a weapon. note: you will probably end up with a high endurance and focus, so armor tinkering and/or alchemy (trade health and mana potions) might be nifty choices.
for my no-war OG, i chose to specialize life magic, creature magic and manaC, and now that she's in her 30's she has enough credits to specialize magic defense (after dumping lore) with her protects and banes at level5 she really only gets chewed up by war spells and chain casters, so MagicD is her next line of defense.
just how does a mage with no war magic kill stuff?
naturally, drains and lifebolts are going to be your primary weapons. you will use lifebolt (martyr's hecatomb) for your ranged attacks, and drains at short range, or when you are getting mobbed. there are a few basic rules to keep in mind with these tools:
life bolt basics:
1) lifebolt dumps a quarter of your current health into a bolt and deals a percentage of damage based on the amount of health drained from you.
2) the more health you have, the more damage your lifebolt will deal. lifebolts as less than half health are both dangerous and ineffective.
3) the higher the level of the bolt, the more damage you will deal.
4) you lose the health the instant you fire the bolt. if the bolt is resisted or misses, you still lose the health.
5) damage is based on your health at the moment you fire the bolt, so if you get clobbered during your wind up, you aren't going to do as much damage.
drain basics:
1) drains deal damage to a target, up to a certain limit, then return a percentage back to you.
2) the amount of damage a drian does is limited by the health the drain returns to you.
3) the less health you have, the more damage you will deal.
4) the less health your victim has, the less damage you will deal, and the less you will get back. i call this this the law of diminishing returns.
5) drain health I drains a maximum of 30 health returns 200% of the health you drained (to a limit of 60), so it will return a lot more than you drained.
6) drain health III drains a maximum of 75 health and returns 133% of the health drained (to a limit of 100), so it will do a lot more damage than drain I, use this drain to knock enemy's down and give you a little back.
7) the range on drains is short. the effective range for drain I is essentially melee range. this is the drain to use when you are getting pounded in a mob. the animation is fast and the health return is high for such a small amount of mana.
generally, you will start your attack with a lifebolt, then drain to recover health, then bolt again. if it's still alive, then drain again and lifebolt. use drain3 when your target is at relatively high health, and drain1 when you or the target are getting low on health. at a certain pnt drain wil stop returning anything and you are just spamming you will finish your target with a lifebolt. you will want to drain for stamina and/or mana during the attack sequence. you can use stam2man and stam2health to level off to be ready for your next target.
the returns for draining mana directly will vary based on the creatures you are fighting. magic based creatures like undead, virindi and dolls are good sources of mana. melee oriented creatures like lugians and drudges are good for stamina, but not good for mana. use drains as your primary means of recovering health and mana, and keep stamina as a reserve.
when it comes to fluids, don't be obsessive about keeping them maxed. thanks to lifebolts your health is usually going to be at 50-75%, and your other fluids are going to go up and down as your fight progresses. keep a few health/stamina/mana potions (not too many due to burden) in case you are completely empty and need to recall quickly or you get hit suddenly for a lot of damage.
so what do i hunt?
in general, you will want to hunt all the things mages normally hunt, or you will want to support a group of fellows.
if you are supporting a group, you will want to toss imperils/vulns around, and heal/revitalize your fellows. You will use drains primarily to keep yourself functional. in this mode, if you are not taking loads of damage, your primary concern will be to keep enough mana to keep casting. if you are fighting creatures that you can't drain for mana, then use stamina and health drains to keep your fluids up, then stam2mana and health2mana. if you are also supporting a war caster, you may need infuse mana, which will compound your mana issues. this may not sound like much help to a group, but if your melees and war casters don't have to pause their attack sequences to heal, down potions, or restore mana, they will kill much faster. also, if you are draining the enemy and replenishing your fellows, their supplies of potions and heal kits will last longer. supporting a group of melees is the best way to help out against stuff you are going to have trouble killing, like olthoi.
if you are hunting solo, you will want to hunt the usual mage fare, golems, drudges, and stuff out in the open. you may find you level faster supporting groups of melees, but soloing dungeons with relatively fast spawns will really help you learn to to manage your fluids in the heat of battle. this is imortant becuse you will need to keep yourself afloat to support others.
how difficult is this template to play?
this template is very hard to play in the beginning, and may need some help getting to 15th level. once you can cast level 3's reliably, you are ready to solo. there is an old technique called wall-licking where you crawl thru dungeons and drain/harm creatures to death thru walls and doors. this may help you some as you get your numbers up to a playable level, or you may want to find a melee to buddy with. once you are at 80 health you should be life bolting for around 20pts of damage with full health. low diff endurance and health jewelry will also help you. raeta's necklace, and anything with life giver is big plus for low level no-war OGs.
what items will i need?
well, health and endurance are just as important to you as focus/self and mana, so look for gear that will bump these attributes. life magic buffs are also nice. rending wands will not help you, and don't waste your time with war wands. i have heard that high spellcraft wands come in handy for fighting drain resistant creatures, but i have found them to be far too slow in their windups and get resisted way too often. i don't really play with too many items on my mages, and janus is still in her low 30's and is just getting to the point where she can use different items. the only item she can't live without is her raishalra's collar.
is there anything i shouldn't do?
this template offers you a tremendous amount of flexibility in your skill selections, so while your possibilities are endless, here are a couple of moves that i considered to be mistakes with janus:
1) war wands, i gave janus a whole suite of explorer wands, and they were resisted by just about everything over 15th level. later i trained lore and tried to get her skill up to use 100 dif wands and found that it was a complete waste for me. the only war wand that i would be intersted in for janus is the weeping wand, since it has nice buffs and a very high level war spell to use in dire situations agains stuff you can't drain.
2) healing, i took the healing skill with janus and found that it didn't fit with her playstyle. naihanchi, my other mage, has war and he uses healing to great effect since he kills so much quicker in comparison. for janus, it was just something you do once everything is dead. she almost never used it during an actual fight.
3) casting heal self in combat, this spell is great to use after a fight, or on other people, but to restore yourself in battle you will want to rely on drains and low level stam2health. the exception to this rule would be when facing a missiler or spell caster that you can't get close enough to drain, then you will use heal self to recover health for your lifebolts.
4) casting harm, at the very low levels, before you put points in to endurance, you will find that hrm1 does more damage than lifebolt as a killing blow. this is pretty much the only time that will be the case. the combination of drains and lifebolts will pretty much always be more effective.
where can i read more on the no war OG?
the martyr mage guide was a big help to me as i figured out how to play janus:
http://vnboards.ign.com/AC_Magic_Shop/b5145/56311757/p1
here are some variations on the no war OG theme:
hwa rang is spec'd creature and life magic and trained in UA, healing, item, manaC and meleeD. i call him the kickboxing OG. hwa uses imperils and vulns to soften up enemies, and even debuffs creatures that he has trouble hitting. he can yield creatures thanks to his high critter skill, so he is able to land spells on creatures that would normall resist him. while imping big groups he uses drains keep himself going until he switch to melee mode. because he is also a melee, he is a lot tougher than a "real" mage, so he does better against things that mages don't like to fight, like bugs.
moy fa kuen will (soon) be spec'd life magic and axe, and trained creature item, manaC, and meleeD. he is one credit shy of specing axe, and should be essentially complete at 40th level. he uses imperils and vulns to knock enemies down very quickly, and drains stamina mostly since swinging that big axe wears him down pretty fast. he does most of his draining on the last creature standing.
hwa is an OG first and a melee second, and since UA doesn't do much damage, he uses imperils and vulns a lot more. thanks to using an axe, moy can kill faster, especially if he has imperiled a target. he does not often use vulns unless he is fighting a creature that is significantly above his level.
for both toons, if they cannot hit a creature with their weapons, they still have the option of using lifebolts and drains to kill with. both of these guys are not as powerful as a pure mage or a pure tank of the same level, but are a lot more versatile.
note: both hwa and moy do have the heal skill, but really only use it while they have their shields up and their weapons in their hands. they both drain when they have their wands up.
i would like to try a life/archer or OG crossbow template to see what that would be like, but the templates i have tried thus far have not been effective. i also have a life/dagger tank, but again i have have not found a template that has worked well for me just yet.
also known as the martyr mage, the vitamancer, or the war cleric, the no-war OG is a very challenging, and in my opinion, one of the funnest mage templates to play.
is life without war magic the life for me?
if your chief complaint about playing a mage is fluid management (keeping your health, stamina and mana at usable levels), or you are still cheesed about the great nerfing of all drains, then this is not the template for you.
if you are looking for the ultimate in challenging templates, you are bored with blowing things to bits with your battle mage, or wish there was someone to provide support for your hunting expeditions, this template might be worth checking out.
why on earth would i do this to a mage?
1)to learn the intricacies of fluid management: playing a no war og for 30 levels is like getting a doctorate degree and a blackbelt in fluid management. once you get the hang of the no-war og, keeping your fluids topped off on your battle mage or war caster will seem like child's play.
2)because sucking the life out of monsters and spitting it back at them is gross... but surprisingly fun.
3)after taking so long to kill monsters, using war magic again will make you feel like a god.
so what do i do?
there are only two hard fast rules for rolling your no war OG:
first you need to spec life magic. it is your first line of offense, and your first line of defense, so you want your life magic skill to be as high as possible. you will use protects to keep you from sustaining damage, drains to weaken your enemy and recover your fluids, and lifebolts to kill your enemies.
second, don't take war magic. if you take war magic, you can't really call yourself a no war OG. if you think a mage isn't a mage without war magic, this is not the template for you.
what about attributes?
that is a matter of preference, but you will generally want to max out focus and self and favor endurance over strength. the higher your health, the more damage you can do with lifebolts and drains, and stamina will serve as the reserve for both health and mana.
here are some good starting examples:
balanced: 40 str, 50 end, 10 cor, 20 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
aggressive: 30 str, 70 end, 10 cor, 10 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
extreme: 10 str, 100 end, 10 cor, 10 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
for my no-war OG, i went with 100's for endurance, focus and self.
as you decide between strength and endurance you are essentially choosing between armor and firepower. more endurance means more health and stamina, harder hitting lifebolts, higher capacity for draining, and more reserves to be converted to mana. more strength means armor and possibly the ability to melee. armor will help protect you, but so will your life protects. you may want to get a set of lighter armor and then bane it to make up the difference in AL. also, losing health just a fact of life for the no-war og. if you get hit, just drain it back, that ought to teach them not to hit you.
ok, what skills should i take?
to be a no war OG, the only skill you must have is life magic. spec'ing creature is worth considering for a number reasons, but your main one will be magic yield, since having your lifebolts and drains resisted will get you killed quickly.
not taking war magic leaves you in a unique position. you are a mage, with all the assets and liabilities that go with it, but you have an extra 16 credits at creation. with those extra credits you could do one of the following:
1) specialize a bunch of other mage stuff: like critter, manaC, magicD, or lore
2) train a bunch of other not-exactly-mage stuff (attributes permitting): like lockpick, meleeD, or even a weapon. note: you will probably end up with a high endurance and focus, so armor tinkering and/or alchemy (trade health and mana potions) might be nifty choices.
for my no-war OG, i chose to specialize life magic, creature magic and manaC, and now that she's in her 30's she has enough credits to specialize magic defense (after dumping lore) with her protects and banes at level5 she really only gets chewed up by war spells and chain casters, so MagicD is her next line of defense.
just how does a mage with no war magic kill stuff?
naturally, drains and lifebolts are going to be your primary weapons. you will use lifebolt (martyr's hecatomb) for your ranged attacks, and drains at short range, or when you are getting mobbed. there are a few basic rules to keep in mind with these tools:
life bolt basics:
1) lifebolt dumps a quarter of your current health into a bolt and deals a percentage of damage based on the amount of health drained from you.
2) the more health you have, the more damage your lifebolt will deal. lifebolts as less than half health are both dangerous and ineffective.
3) the higher the level of the bolt, the more damage you will deal.
4) you lose the health the instant you fire the bolt. if the bolt is resisted or misses, you still lose the health.
5) damage is based on your health at the moment you fire the bolt, so if you get clobbered during your wind up, you aren't going to do as much damage.
drain basics:
1) drains deal damage to a target, up to a certain limit, then return a percentage back to you.
2) the amount of damage a drian does is limited by the health the drain returns to you.
3) the less health you have, the more damage you will deal.
4) the less health your victim has, the less damage you will deal, and the less you will get back. i call this this the law of diminishing returns.
5) drain health I drains a maximum of 30 health returns 200% of the health you drained (to a limit of 60), so it will return a lot more than you drained.
6) drain health III drains a maximum of 75 health and returns 133% of the health drained (to a limit of 100), so it will do a lot more damage than drain I, use this drain to knock enemy's down and give you a little back.
7) the range on drains is short. the effective range for drain I is essentially melee range. this is the drain to use when you are getting pounded in a mob. the animation is fast and the health return is high for such a small amount of mana.
generally, you will start your attack with a lifebolt, then drain to recover health, then bolt again. if it's still alive, then drain again and lifebolt. use drain3 when your target is at relatively high health, and drain1 when you or the target are getting low on health. at a certain pnt drain wil stop returning anything and you are just spamming you will finish your target with a lifebolt. you will want to drain for stamina and/or mana during the attack sequence. you can use stam2man and stam2health to level off to be ready for your next target.
the returns for draining mana directly will vary based on the creatures you are fighting. magic based creatures like undead, virindi and dolls are good sources of mana. melee oriented creatures like lugians and drudges are good for stamina, but not good for mana. use drains as your primary means of recovering health and mana, and keep stamina as a reserve.
when it comes to fluids, don't be obsessive about keeping them maxed. thanks to lifebolts your health is usually going to be at 50-75%, and your other fluids are going to go up and down as your fight progresses. keep a few health/stamina/mana potions (not too many due to burden) in case you are completely empty and need to recall quickly or you get hit suddenly for a lot of damage.
so what do i hunt?
in general, you will want to hunt all the things mages normally hunt, or you will want to support a group of fellows.
if you are supporting a group, you will want to toss imperils/vulns around, and heal/revitalize your fellows. You will use drains primarily to keep yourself functional. in this mode, if you are not taking loads of damage, your primary concern will be to keep enough mana to keep casting. if you are fighting creatures that you can't drain for mana, then use stamina and health drains to keep your fluids up, then stam2mana and health2mana. if you are also supporting a war caster, you may need infuse mana, which will compound your mana issues. this may not sound like much help to a group, but if your melees and war casters don't have to pause their attack sequences to heal, down potions, or restore mana, they will kill much faster. also, if you are draining the enemy and replenishing your fellows, their supplies of potions and heal kits will last longer. supporting a group of melees is the best way to help out against stuff you are going to have trouble killing, like olthoi.
if you are hunting solo, you will want to hunt the usual mage fare, golems, drudges, and stuff out in the open. you may find you level faster supporting groups of melees, but soloing dungeons with relatively fast spawns will really help you learn to to manage your fluids in the heat of battle. this is imortant becuse you will need to keep yourself afloat to support others.
how difficult is this template to play?
this template is very hard to play in the beginning, and may need some help getting to 15th level. once you can cast level 3's reliably, you are ready to solo. there is an old technique called wall-licking where you crawl thru dungeons and drain/harm creatures to death thru walls and doors. this may help you some as you get your numbers up to a playable level, or you may want to find a melee to buddy with. once you are at 80 health you should be life bolting for around 20pts of damage with full health. low diff endurance and health jewelry will also help you. raeta's necklace, and anything with life giver is big plus for low level no-war OGs.
what items will i need?
well, health and endurance are just as important to you as focus/self and mana, so look for gear that will bump these attributes. life magic buffs are also nice. rending wands will not help you, and don't waste your time with war wands. i have heard that high spellcraft wands come in handy for fighting drain resistant creatures, but i have found them to be far too slow in their windups and get resisted way too often. i don't really play with too many items on my mages, and janus is still in her low 30's and is just getting to the point where she can use different items. the only item she can't live without is her raishalra's collar.
is there anything i shouldn't do?
this template offers you a tremendous amount of flexibility in your skill selections, so while your possibilities are endless, here are a couple of moves that i considered to be mistakes with janus:
1) war wands, i gave janus a whole suite of explorer wands, and they were resisted by just about everything over 15th level. later i trained lore and tried to get her skill up to use 100 dif wands and found that it was a complete waste for me. the only war wand that i would be intersted in for janus is the weeping wand, since it has nice buffs and a very high level war spell to use in dire situations agains stuff you can't drain.
2) healing, i took the healing skill with janus and found that it didn't fit with her playstyle. naihanchi, my other mage, has war and he uses healing to great effect since he kills so much quicker in comparison. for janus, it was just something you do once everything is dead. she almost never used it during an actual fight.
3) casting heal self in combat, this spell is great to use after a fight, or on other people, but to restore yourself in battle you will want to rely on drains and low level stam2health. the exception to this rule would be when facing a missiler or spell caster that you can't get close enough to drain, then you will use heal self to recover health for your lifebolts.
4) casting harm, at the very low levels, before you put points in to endurance, you will find that hrm1 does more damage than lifebolt as a killing blow. this is pretty much the only time that will be the case. the combination of drains and lifebolts will pretty much always be more effective.
where can i read more on the no war OG?
the martyr mage guide was a big help to me as i figured out how to play janus:
http://vnboards.ign.com/AC_Magic_Shop/b5145/56311757/p1
here are some variations on the no war OG theme:
hwa rang is spec'd creature and life magic and trained in UA, healing, item, manaC and meleeD. i call him the kickboxing OG. hwa uses imperils and vulns to soften up enemies, and even debuffs creatures that he has trouble hitting. he can yield creatures thanks to his high critter skill, so he is able to land spells on creatures that would normall resist him. while imping big groups he uses drains keep himself going until he switch to melee mode. because he is also a melee, he is a lot tougher than a "real" mage, so he does better against things that mages don't like to fight, like bugs.
moy fa kuen will (soon) be spec'd life magic and axe, and trained creature item, manaC, and meleeD. he is one credit shy of specing axe, and should be essentially complete at 40th level. he uses imperils and vulns to knock enemies down very quickly, and drains stamina mostly since swinging that big axe wears him down pretty fast. he does most of his draining on the last creature standing.
hwa is an OG first and a melee second, and since UA doesn't do much damage, he uses imperils and vulns a lot more. thanks to using an axe, moy can kill faster, especially if he has imperiled a target. he does not often use vulns unless he is fighting a creature that is significantly above his level.
for both toons, if they cannot hit a creature with their weapons, they still have the option of using lifebolts and drains to kill with. both of these guys are not as powerful as a pure mage or a pure tank of the same level, but are a lot more versatile.
note: both hwa and moy do have the heal skill, but really only use it while they have their shields up and their weapons in their hands. they both drain when they have their wands up.
i would like to try a life/archer or OG crossbow template to see what that would be like, but the templates i have tried thus far have not been effective. i also have a life/dagger tank, but again i have have not found a template that has worked well for me just yet.
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