He has even written a follow up or two on the build, which you can read here. And i think he wants to know, is the build good? I will try to answer that at the end. But i want to touch on my changes vs his according to a couple of screen shots.

Geoff’s build @ 20

Mine also @ 20

Some easy things to notice changes, i have about 12 more PRR and about 7 more Double Strike. It is not shown but i would bet i have a little more Melee power also, but either of us chose to hover over that break down. Some things that might not jump out at you is he has a few more HPs and i have a lot higher AC (which is meaning less anyway). I assume do to destiny and twist of fate choices.  Also i have “geared up” for level 20-22 something i am not sure Geoff has a ton of level 20 gear ready to go. Oh and one last thing he has a lot more Sonic power then i do/did. I will talk about that is a moment also.

I think Geoff is in Crusader based on his posts, a great choice for this build. I am in Fate singer, a much less good choice but i need to fill my arcane sphere this go around so that is why i am singing vs being in a “good destiny.” But even so i feel unstoppable in most quests. The only time i have died at near level quests were 1, against the ballista’s in Storm the Beaches, i was shot from behind which started a bit of a chain reaction for a moment but was able to pull out of thanks to a rez cake and the strength of the build and teamwork of my leveling partner ie the wife. 2, I pulled the lever in Von3 almost lived died at like -40 or something, btw like a lot of players i am a EE player first time through…. So there is some challenge in what we are doing, it is not like we are just running by on EH.  And we are doing well. Like very well. I think that most of that is on the strength of the Warlock class.

Having said that, watching the wife, Grim and the rest of the guild play their Warlocks had i played one straight, i would have TRed right away. I did the spam damage spells thing for long enough with the Magic Missile wizard, Sorc, Ranged builds even the no DC having divine casters and i am done with that play-style for a while.  But this build is different. A change i need and have been trying to have for awhile. My last live was a Fvs/Pally. It was a lot of fun also and i could do things solo on EE also but it was a lot of work all the time. Check this attack that, do i need a heal? Make sure this buff is running, etc. It was just a lot of work for not as much payoff.

This build does all the things i want my melee to do. AOE damage just by being around, some healing, most important skills covered and solid damage. Not great melee damage but good enough. Add in the Aura ticks and the damage is more then fine. I am even looking forward to having perfect weapon fighting thanks to Reign and other bard powers.

Gearing this version of  Samius is hard. Most of the gear that is best for this build is not stuff i have just laying around. I made a Epic Red dragon suit of armor just to have something light to wear that is not robes. I have been using my green steel weapons since level 12. And had Tobril not talked about the Blade of the High Priestess, i would still be using them.

I did swap to the Blade of the High Priestess, for general mobs. Mostly thanks to Potency +72 boosting my sonic power to the levels Geoff is talking about in his posts. A proper Drow Light Mace of the Weapon Master might be more damage over all but i like what this is doing for now. And i have a Celestia when ever the wife is ready to level up as well as 2 raider’s chests in the event i decide i want a Balizarde. I haven’t decided yet.

Overall, the build in epics so far is really solid. I don’t mean that as anything but the highest of complements. I have played everything from glass cannons to max dps i could muster ranged builds that can solo most EE quests to the support healer that feels that leveling is easy. Wack a mole with Hps is easy in epics, if they die just rez them and move on.

Not to say there aren’t short comings in the build. It would be great to have rogue skills. But to get them you would have to lose the fighter levels which are amazing. You wouldn’t think that they are great but they are. The saves need work, but i am me so i will fail saves no matter what. And you could use a few more 100 hps fairly early into epic elites if you really want to tank bosses. But that is not a huge deal breaker for me.

If you asked me for a grade of 1-10, i would say this is a 9ish. And here is the kicker. I was looking for something to rock a few epic lives with, i need a few more here and there to finish my epic completionist. And i had planed to do so with that FvS/Pally build. But i needed the heroic completionist feat (+2 to all stats was huge for the build) and i lost it when Warlock came out making that build a lot tougher to play. I found Geoff’s build looking for a warlock that would itch the scratch that was bothering me and instead found something that i think will make the divine epic lives easy to complete.

My plan is to level to 28, look at how the world looks then and epic tr and rock back up in Unyielding Sentinel or Divine Crusader. I suspect that the Sentinel will be a touch stronger to play in but maybe not.

It is a fun build and i would much suggest checking it out if you can. Oh and thanks Geoff for posting this build. I think you are on to something great here and as i play it more and learn the ins and outs of the build i will refine things and keep sharing them with everyone, even if you move back to rangggger.

<3s

That’s not true with DDO where one class, pure or otherwise plays differently than another and dependent on class and race, we’re talking about slight beginnings.

To be clear – the difference might be slight and there has been some changes that brings everything into a similar play style, but it’s hard to argue that the nuts and bolts are all the same.

It’s in this post MOTU landscape that some classes have suffered the most and particularly if you take in account both enhancement trees and destinies. Some classes have a better choice of destiny to pick from, but like with ranger – it’s questionable if they have something that suits a 2 weapon fighting tempest, when so much seems to benefit 2 handed weapons or ranged.

This update addresses some of the issues. Particularly that Deepwood sniper wasn’t all that good, Tempest ended up weak and pretty much everything pointed to AA. While AA has not changed yet, Deepwood have now become a cherry picking tree and Tempest much more concentrated around 2 weapon fighting and less clickies.

And that’s good – because in the post MOTU world the ranger suffered from lacking the ability to soak up the damage of the more tanking melee and the ability to avoid some damage like the Swashbuckler and I quit playing mine up until this update.

That’s not to say it’s perfect; but by sharpening the stick on the rangers offensive melee and allowing the ranged part to be a terrific burst type attack, it have made it that much better at straddling the in between super high PRR builds and the ones who rely on spells and avoidance.

The Ranger now feels like a better alternative for that in between play.

And that’s important. Particularly since most rangers are not tactical DC builds, meaning stunning blow and trip. That’s something fighter builds, and to some extent Paladins can.

And they’re not maximum DPS while shrugging off damage like barbarians. Nor are they as effective at avoiding damage like Swashbucklers that combine evasion, dodge AND displacement.

Thus Ranger rely mostly on dodge (poor substitute) and minuscule PRR and that’s not now if you combine that with mediocre DPS (or rather average).

And that’s a terrible scenario for adding lots of clickies to ‘build up dps’ of you’re constantly jumping out of combat to heal yourself.

Rest in peace Demon, and my condolences to your family and friends.

Our EE FOT group, my first EE FOT completion, FOT U19. Date: September 13, 2013

I didn’t abandon DDO entirely. I played it a few hours here and there but not even the Epic and the heroic XP weekends could bring me back (entirely).

Defiance however is becoming (and a lot quicker) what DDO felt for a while. There’s not much there other than endless swarms and such and tons of different weapons that eventually all become the same.

Strictly speaking you’re talking about a few things that are good at most stuff – so while there are so many different options, any serious person knows what the gold standard is.

This is true with even DDO. You have choices and there are a scant few that specialize in some of it (like war axes, blunt weapons etc) but it’s still pretty much a few types that forms the base for most players.

To Turbines credit they have worked on expanding the options for players but if you’re looking at maximum DPS then it boils down to a few specific choices.

On the flip side of things – I found this place – Vistaprint that can put anything you like on a mug. Mine just broke. Someone placed it in the sink and other stuff on it and a chunk came off the edge.

So I’m looking for a replacement. Mine had ‘my cup of stfu’ on it. Sure – not mature – but it plays to the idea of how people act before their first cup of coffee, Not me.

So a better choice for me – and something I really is contemplating is a cup with my favorite toon on and with ‘Keep Calm and Raid on’ as text.

Or something similar. Yes – DDO is still my favorite game.

I logged on at 10 to 8 pm (that’s 2 pm EST) and posted for EE Deathwyrm. After a fem min I was joined by Bonngg. I wasn’t really in any hurry or rush, I was discovering new things about the monster manual and spent a good while just clicking through it, before I decided to do a run of the first quest in the new Amrath chain. As I was progressing through the quest I started getting joiners and as I finished I had 6 ppl and had to convert to raid group. It didn’t take long before I had a full group and we started. I typed down my normal instructions “here are my rules: help with the puzzles if you know them, but don’t turn the beam until it’s done and call beam when you do. Kill off trash in one level before stepping through the portal, as stepping through will cause trash to spawn in the next area, and can increase lag. And, remember to run away from your stone if you die”.

The EEraids party this week

We had a really good and smooth run. A few deaths on the way to the end, but the group stayed well together, and no one got lost or left behind. We got the maze and the tower and got to the end fight without any real issues. I was going to tank so I needed someone else to lead shadow side. Gray would drop the ragers, and I had 4 volunteers for death lords. I told Justus to lead shadow side. We got really lucky this week, as we found the real phylactery in the third try. One of the guys on the levers failed to pull (q + e is not guaranteed to work, you might actually have to click on it), so we had to redrop the dragon, but we had enough dps and this wasn’t a big issue. We finished in a record time of 50 min 29 s.

I told the party I was going to post for Fire on Thunder Peak next and for the first time since I started running these no one left. Everyone from the Deathwyrm run wanted to stay. I didn’t want to be on a dragon, so got two volunteers for this. The dragon kiters weren’t 100% confident, and I did expect them to die.. but I wasn’t really worried until we started lagging. We lagged so badly that I thought we were gonna wipe. If I’m not mistaken, and one point we only had one person left alive… but they managed to get ppl up and we were able to continue. I was doing my best trying to melee trash, and died a few times because my heals were not taking, and damaged was hitting me delayed, so I couldn’t even tell how much damage I was taking. Yet, we finished in 30 min. Good job team!

The raid party again

And to finish off the night I wanted to do more Defiler of the Just runs. The party convinced me to do epic hard, so that is what I posted for. We had a lot of dps and splitting the party up in two teams seems to work well, we got most of the executioners down quickly… all except  for the last spawn. The last spawn usually has three archons at the same time, and even though I was yelling at ppl to kill the executioners, we missed at least two, and lost two archons. Not that 2 is that bad. We got to the end fight an finished the boss before  she started bombing the place.

epic hard defiler of the just – end fight

If I recall we did three normal runs after this, and they were all fine, a bit laggy but fine.

That’s all I have for you today. Thank you for stopping by and take care.

P.S. My toons (Thaz, Cerge and Firetha) are starting to be half way through to  the 20th completion on doj. Still a bit to go before I can get back to eTrs/ TRs.

Except for… two days ago as we were getting ready to start the end fight, suddenly the whole party froze. Asking in Titan chat I learned that Orchard was frozen as well. I didn’t expect it to do any good, but I decided to send in a ticket anyway. My ticket said “whole party frozen in Defiler of the Just”. About 20 minutes later (I just did not want to leave when we were this close to a completion), I was contacted by a moose, and at the same time the party unfroze.

Yesterday I didn’t get a chance to raid, as I didn’t log on til around 10.30pm, but today we did 3 more runs. Here are a couple of more screenies.

The end boss in Defiler of the Just

On Monday, as the end boss was dying she suddenly exploded and killed almost everyone. Lucky for us there is a raise shrine right there when you complete. :)

I have pulled a few items during the runs, Thaz got the goggles, Cerge has braziers and the longsword. I wish to do 20 runs on Thaz, Cerge and Firetha before I eTR or TR them, then I also need to run the raid on Maidae who is currently in the middle of an eTR.

Well, that’s all I have for you today. Thank you for stopping by and have a great day

P.S. I should prolly do a proper blog about the raid soon, as well as a video, but I’m tired right now so will have to get to that later.

Hymm & Willowing have been blitzing through the quests as usual. Rach’s barbarian pretty much clears up everything. I just jump in with my Divine Crusader (or “puddle of pee” as it is known in the guild – don’t ask) helping to mop things up and give some extra healing.

Fending off a dangerous squirrel
in Trackers Trap

Epic Light Unending – the quarterstaff from
Indiana Jones, or a big spoon…?

While we were still at heroic level Update 27 came out with the new Amrath content. And we were just about to hit level 15 – great timing. And we’ve run the raid quite a bit since hitting epic levels. It’s a fun raid, I like it. I am really looking forward to getting the whole guild on one weekend and just us running it. Yes, shocking, we’ve been running the new raid in pugs :D

Last weekend we managed a short manned guild run of Temple of the Deathwyrm for the first time in a long time. It was great fun. At the end fight we had Tobril on the dragon, Aldrac was kiting Kuldjargh, with myself, Rach and Samius clearing cultists with us to go through to the shadow side at the appropriate time. Except that wasn’t working. Eventually Rach took the dragon, Tobril the Kuldjargh, and Aldrac and myself went shadow side. Samius was having serious lag issues so ended up helping with heals on Rach. Aldrac and I were really lucky, we got the Phylactory on the second trip through.

Deathwyrm

Waiting for the levers to be pulled

In the end, it was a pretty smooth run and it was fun getting back in there.

And Hymm finally picked up a Jibbers Blade from 3BC!

And I’ve just realised that we TR’d on July 13th so it’s taken us only a month to cap. Not bad (for us). The build has been fun but I don’t think I have maximised on the warlock part. I have been using the aura from Enlightened Spirit for extra damage, but my main damage has come from the quarterstaff.

My once artificer, Othala, is now a level 26 sorceror. He ran some epic quests, mainly Three Barrel Cove and Amrath, the other weekend with guildies. He’s kind of gimpy to be honest – good job I have guildies who don’t mind carrying him along (not literally – I wasn’t always a soul stone).

Othala running the new epic Amrath quests

I even managed to finally cap Grypp, my fighter who eTR’d months ago and has been sat around just shy of level 28. Of course, I have to decide what to do with him now….

Since capping Hymm & Willowing we’ve mainly switched to our alts Fyrne (paladin) & Rowendar (sorceror). We hit level 17 today and I’m feeling a lot more comfortable with the build than I was when he first TR’d. Mainly because I’ve picked up some better equipment :)

Fyrne & Rowendar running Heroic Amrath

One thing we have really noticed this life is the monster manual rewards. It may be because of the new volume, obviously it ties in with us running the new content. But we do seem to have had a lot of rewards. A nice surprise was when we picked up a gnoll reward which was 250 mysterious remnants – I like that addition :)

Gnoll exterminator II

So that’s 4 characters who have run the new content in one form or another since it came out. The quests are fairly short but I think they are fun. As I have mentioned, I really enjoy the raid. And I love the storyline. I am really really looking forward to epic Vale of Twilight to see how it turns out :P And honestly – who doesn’t want more Harry in their DDO?

Anyway, after a busy few weeks we’re going to try and take a break this week. I have to rebuild Rach’s PC, I have some revision to do for a coming exam and we’re going away on holiday in a few weeks and we need to work out what we’re going to visit when we’re there :D

Shavarath as seen from Amrath

Have fun, see you around :)

I’m really not lazy.

Well, OK, maybe I kinda am in some ways. But the lack of recent blog posts and the backlog of new blogs to be added to OurDDO have nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with a bum shoulder.

So I’ve been months in pain with no doctor (I don’t do doctors – until this happened, the last time I had a regular doctor was in 2005, and that was only because I’d been in a car accident).

I’m OK with typing for short periods of time (or typing left-handed). Clicking a mouse button once is uncomfortable, twice is painful, more than that is excruciating. I thought this was odd considering the problem is in my shoulder (actually, my new doctor thinks the shoulder problems are because of neck problems from that 2005 car accident – how about a rousing round of “The knee bone’s connected to the hip bone?”)… anyway, among other things that include a bone spur, rotator cuff tenditis, and an unusual amount of arthritis, there is apparently a nerve impinged somewhere between my fingers and my shoulder/neck area. So when I move my fingers, my shoulder hurts. When I use my shoulder muscles to move my upper arm, my fingers hurt. And my entire arm, from the fingers to the elbow up over the neck and down to the shoulder blade, is swollen (and so far no one seems quite sure just where all the swelling is coming from, or why it won’t go away).

This makes it hard to play DDO. I’ve barely played Even and about 3/4 of my other characters at all; the few I’m playing on a semi-regular basis are the ones who can be at least somewhat effective with little or no mouse clicking. As I’ve tried to explain to a couple of friends who’ve been all, “Just don’t click!” when I tell them I can’t run something with them, it’s not that easy. There’s the small matter of feeling pike-y if I’m not contributing up to par, and the (for me) much larger matter of clicking without thinking and ending up in serious pain. So I mostly solo or run with the guild, or run toons who can go on auto-attack and not need to do much more than tab around for targets. Or, I just hang out on the guild ship and take screenies of my bank bard in her mushroom cap.

This also makes it all but impossible to update OurDDO, because adding a new blog involves copy/pasting the blog address in several places, as well as making an icon and pasting THAT address. Clicking a mouse is difficult. Click-dragging, as one must do to copy/paste, is near torture.

For now I’m in physical therapy for the next few months and get to wear an oh-so-fashionable compression sleeve from wrist to shoulder all the time (I’m allowed to take it off to sleep and shower). I have two more doctor’s appointments (regular and orthopedic) in the next two weeks, and will likely be getting referred to a neurologist as well.

I’m debating E-mailing the OurDDO files to a suitably trustworthy person along with a list of blogs to add, then having them mail the updated files back so I can upload them, but that’s a lot to ask. We’ll see.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the new blogs – and I do have a fairly long list – will be added… hopefully someday soon!

According to developer Vargouille anyone who has a character with the completionist feat will get a “Respec Feat” and can go to Fred to have it replaced.

Hymm

This life has definitely taken longer than usual, but there has been a lot of real life stuff to do so it was inevitable it would take a bit longer. However I capped Hymm’s 19th life on Friday. This has been my first barbarian life since the enhancement tree overhaul, and my first ever fully played halfling char. He has been a lot of fun to run, the speed of halflings, added with the speed boosts from barbarian, made quests zoom along :) I’ve liked the changes to the barbarian, the self healing is very handy.

I have heard that people on the main DDO forums are complaining that it’s overpowered… not sure why that is. It’s only effective if you invest heavily into barbarian. And why should it matter? All the changes to enhancement trees have improved classes and I’m sure each class will eventually get looked at. I’m getting tired of Turbine revamping enhancement tree’s for the better, then people coming along and complain…

Why does the Thunderforged quarterstaff look like a bit of railing?

OK, enough of that. The barbarian life has been fun. I think when I run my last barbarian life I’ll do a full 20 levels of barbarian and possibly switch to human for the extra feats. This week, I hope to have time to eTR then TR into what will be my last bard life.

Fyrne

Since Hymm capped on Friday night, when we got chance to play on Saturday I switched to Fyrne. He is already level 28 but was a few hundred thousand XP away from capping an epic destiny sphere. I wanted to get that capped so I can eTR then TR him too (not at the same time as Hymm though – that could get confusing!). So we ran VoN 3 & 4, then LoD chain thinking we could get a saga done for the XP. Except that chain was enough.

The drow bastard sword is pretty nasty looking – in a good way!

Othala

We also managed to squeeze in a few hours of play on Sunday so I switched again. Othala is currently level 21, running with Rach’s monk/paladin Nightley. Guildie Aldrac had just got to level 20 so we ran some House Phiarlan & Deneith quests, with Tobril joining us for a few of the quests.

Tactical positioning in party crashers

That’s all I have for you! Hopefully I can get another blog done once we have TR’d our mains and life 20 has started (how many do I need for triple completionist…? 39? 42 once Warlock comes out? eek)

Have fun, see you around :D

A vacation is a wonderful thing, and one that I haven’t indulged in for a good long while. In real life, I’m the primary person who deals with a very difficult family member; there’s also currently another close relative who is doing his level best to stir up drama. It’s been… stressful.

So when my cousin asked me if I wanted to house-sit for her while she and her family took their own vacation, I jumped at the chance. A week and a half of having a house to myself, watching whatever I want on TV, not having to share a bathroom, two hours from home? YES, please!

I miss DDO – I don’t have a computer here, just my tablet. I kinda miss my nail polish, LOL. And I REALLY miss my cats, although my cousin’s two cats are great.

But I’m having the MOST awesome time. I’ve caught up on some reading, done some legwork on my next novel project (it’s got an ice dragon in it. That’s all I’m sayin’ for now), drew a guild logo, and taught myself to play “Soft Kitty,” the theme from “Jurassic Park,” “Red River Valley,” and a few other assorted songs on the recorder.

I also went through DDO Wiki and made a list of every cosmetic pet ever released, and after doing a quick count, realized that I’m one short – my stable says I have 66 pets, but I should have 67. I’ll definitely have to check that out once I get home.

Sadly, my R&R comes to an end Sunday. I’m definitely going to make the most of my last few days.

Geoff Hanna, aka “Gamer Geoff,” recently posted a blog that detailed how to change some of the splash screens you see when you’re zoning from one area to another in DDO.

I take a lot of screenshots. I mean, A LOT of screenshots. Thousands of ’em, possibly tens of thousands. And I get tired of looking at the same splash screens all the time. So this idea really appealed to me.

Last night I decided it was high time I bit the bullet and tried it out. Picked 11 screenies kindasorta at random, cropped them to 1024×768, saved them in the appropriate directory with the filenames DDO assigned to the default splash screens, and then booted the game.

WOW. SERIOUSLY. JUST WOW.

It was incredibly cool to zone from one airship deck to the other and see my OWN picture of our OWN airship while I was zoning.

If you try this, you won’t get your own screens on every zone; some zones and quests have specific splash screens that – as far as I know – can’t be changed. But if you’re zoning into a place that uses a generic screen (having a Kraken with a top deck, four lower  decks, and a cargo hold, this happens to me a lot), you’re going to see your own screens for those. And it’s pretty darn awesome.

I thought I’d share the first set of screenies I used as splash screens. Since I have so VERY many screen shots, I’ll probably rotate them every so often, just because I can. Feel free to click any or all of them to download for yourself!  :)

It’s time.

For four and a half years, my poor Victaurya has been running around Stormreach and Faerun sporting a 28-point build and some of the worst feat choices you can make and still be survivable. She followed a path build until she was level 8 or 9 and until now, has never done any kind of reincarnating – not lesser, not greater, not heroic, not epic. She’s been a true first-lifer; she doesn’t even have all her destinies (or even MOST of her destinies) capped. Heck, she probably hasn’t even tried half of them.

Despite that, she’s actually fared pretty well. She’s not particularly solo-able, although she’s made it through some of the easier EEs on her own, but – IMHO, anyway – she’s a pretty good supporting member of a party. She was my very first toon, and I never really had clear-cut goals for her at the beginning, other than, “Try not to die.”

Over the past few years, as she’s slowly (very slowly) leveled to 28 and I’ve learned a lot more about DDO, I’ve sort of formulated this idea of a Vic who could deal with any trap or lock in the game, deal reasonable DPS, self-heal as much as possible, and be able to survive if she drew aggro.

Well, she’s done all that, and more. I don’t think she’s failed a trap or lock in the entire epic part of her life (tbh, the last time I remember her failing a trap was Chamber of Insanity, and I’m not sure she’s EVER failed to pick a lock). Epic destinies – well, mostly Cocoon – have given her enough self-healing to mostly not need any additional help except in EE.

As for the rest… Friday night, our little band of Flower Sniffers decided to tackle What Goes Up on epic elite. There were four of us: Slvr’s druid, Comic’s arty, Seki’s cleric, and Vic. Slvr and Comic each brought a hireling healer as well, although Garret and Erytheia were mostly more drawback than asset. We are probably not really an EE-caliber group overall, but our philosophy is pretty much, “Hey, let’s try it, if we wipe we can always go again on a lower difficulty.”

Vic, being a rogue and not having a hire, probably had the least self-healing capacity, but died the least, by quite a bit (well, except Seki, but he had to leave halfway through). She also dominated the kill count, ending up with nearly half of our total kills (which surprised me, because Slvr’s druid has some serious DPS). Her UMD, besides being enough to lower all the barriers, also allowed her to throw out heals and rezzes. And several times, she went toe-to-toe with angry orcs and survived without taking serious damage.

I’ve been kinda proud of how well Vic does despite her 28-point build. Her performance in EE WGU made me think that maybe she does pretty well for any build. Not that she’s a rock star, just that I don’t think I could ask for any more from her even if she were a completionist. It’s kind of bittersweet; I have to admit I like getting to the end of a tough quest and having someone send me a tell or say something in party chat like, “I just looked at your profile – wow, you’re still an adventurer build? Nice going!”

So as much as I sometimes want to keep Vic at 28 points forever, I think she’s earned the right to four more build points (not to mention a much better feat selection). A few hours ago, I took her to Reincarnation Grove for an epic TR.

New level 20 Vic feels a little gimpy compared to old level 28 Vic – fewer hit points, lower skills, and all her cool gear now has red boxes around the icons. But she overcame a lot to level to 28 and make herself a valuable, contributing party member. I think she’ll be just fine until she levels up enough to equip all her shinies.

A few years back, faced with ever-dwindling inventory space because I’m the DDO equivalent of a hoarder, I rolled myself up a bank/haggle toon to hold some of the stuff I didn’t have room for anywhere else.

I named her Getting Even More (get it?). Banking and haggling were ALL she was supposed to do, but I wanted to get the extra inventory and bank slots on her, so I did some Coin Lords and House K favor farming.

And of course, it happened – I started liking her. And I bought her some gear, and all of a sudden she didn’t have room for anyone else’s items because her inventory was full of her own stuff.

When I unlocked Favored Soul, I didn’t have any toon slots available. So I told myself sternly, “Delete Getting and roll up a FvS. She’s never going to be a serious toon anyway.”

Which I did – delete her, that is. And as silly as it may sound, I felt bad about it almost immediately.

But she stayed deleted for, oh, probably two or three years. Then one night, for some reason, something made me think of her. And just as I was thinking of her, Shin said, “Hey, don’t forget it’s Thursday, last day of this week’s DDO store sales. Character slots are on sale until tomorrow.”

It was a sign! It was destiny! I am a Flower Sniffer of Destiny! (No, really, I am – that’s our guild name.)

I bought another character slot – hey, I only had 15 – and rolled up a new Getting. This time, instead of a helf pure bard with royal blue hair, she’s a sun elf 1 cleric/14 bard.

I laid down strict rules – I will spend NO plat, shards, or TP on her. She will get NO new gear unless it 1) drops in my name; 2) no one else in the party wants it; and 3) none of my other toons need it. And she will run NO quests except for Coin Lords and House K favor. Her function is inventory space, and ONLY inventory space. I maxed her Charisma, mostly dump-statted everything else, and took feats I’ve always ignored (Eschew Materials, Augment Summoning) to make her as un-viable as possible. No way was I going to let myself get attached to her.

Oops.

I’ve broken most of those rules. I blame Billy, Dayja, Geek, and a couple of other Monty’s who invited her to run elite Acid Wit with them. I didn’t think she’d make it through the first fight – I was wrong. Oh, she died a few times, but she didn’t die the most, or nearly as often as I thought she would. And her CC and healing weren’t half bad.

Then I soloed the VoN flaggers on elite with her. And not long ago she ran HE Temple of Elemental Evil with Shin, and again had some nice CC going on along with respectable self-healing. (She couldn’t help Shin out there, as he’s a PM.) Granted, she was over level, but I think her degree of intentional gimpy-ness more than made up for that.

Maybe it’s the writer in me that makes me attached to my toons the way I get attached to the fictional literary characters I create. Maybe that’s why I know the back story of every toon pretty much by the time I’m done rolling them up. And maybe that’s why, despite my best intentions, I found myself liking Getting.

So I bought her a sword, and then I spent some TP for a Bouquet of Roses to glamer onto her new sword. Then I thought she needed her own unique look, so I picked out a blonde hair dye from Sere’s rather extensive dye stash, and shelled out a few more TP to get her a new hairdo as well.

But that’s IT. I swear. I’m not getting her anything else.

… no, that’s not me at the AH. Must just be someone who looks like me. Uh-huh. That’s it.

In the small amount of time I have had I have played with the new crossbow “feel” and I think it’s a vast improvement over the old way. Although I sometimes end up shooting and extra volley of arrows. I figure that with some practice I’ll figure out when to let my finger off the trigger in time time to avoid that. I suspect that it’s just my old habit of holding the trigger to load the next arrow in the chamber so to speak.

In any case here are links for the Update and Patch notes.

• Update 25
• Update 25 Patch 1
• Update 25 Patch 2

Some bad news with Patch 2 though. With it’s release some ladders have not been cooperating. Cordovan say’s the issue is being looked into.

Also, Cordovan talked about some things to come in Update 26 (aiming for June). It looks like some new heroic and epic quests are coming. Amrath. Also, they are aiming to release warlock then too. As with anything though, I would not count that as a promise. Sometimes things get mucked up and things might get pushed back.

Severlin, Steelstar, Knockback, and Cordovan did a brief preview two quests in the Temple of Elemental Evil then answered a few questions. I’m really looking forward to this module. A few months ago when the DDO servers went down for maintenance on my day off, I pulled out the old Atari/Troika PC game and installed it with the Circle of Eight mod pack. If you get a chance it is well worth heading over to GOG and spending the $6 on it . It’s a turned based game and I can’t wait to see how Turbine translates this storyline into DDO’s system.

They also briefly talked about the reworking rogues will be getting along with changes to crossbow to make all of the types more viable in the game as well as changing the animations so it’s smoother. They will be previewing this next week on the livesteam.

At the end of the video they were debating on talking about something that they are not allowed to talk about. They did not end up talking about said subject but it was implied later that they will be releasing more classic tabletop D&D content.

Raid bosses seem to have it all – high DR, massive amounts of hit points, devastating attacks, teeming minions to beat on you while you’re trying to beat on the big guy (or girl).

But I’m not so sure they rank overly high in intelligence or wisdom.

There are two things you see at the end of many raids:

• 1. A dead raid boss
• 2. A rez shrine

The rez shrine’s there for unlucky adventurers who are in soulstone form at the raid’s completion, right? But what about the OTHER death at the end of every successful raid? Why doesn’t the boss just click the shrine and bring him- or herself back to life?

Take First General Horoth, for example, the big nasty guy who shrinks Harry and later attempts to kill or banish you in Tower of Despair. Horoth’s a pretty powerful dude. You’d think that someone who attained the rank of First General would have some smarts. Alas for Horoth, but happily for adventurers, he does not know enough to click the rez shrine after he’s been defeated.

And even if Horoth couldn’t figure this out for himself, wouldn’t someone on his staff kinda poke his carcass and say, “Um, hey, boss, I know this is a bad time, but see that thing over there with the sun symbol carved on it? You’re still in this, big guy!”

Sure, Polperios probably wouldn’t be inclined to help him – after all, when your intrepid band of adventurers shows up in Horoth’s portal room and the First General turns to his high council for help, Polp responds, “This is your mess, General. You clean it up.”

But what about all those Orthons that come to his aid? All the “Soliders of Shavarth?” (Those aren’t my typos; that’s actually what appears in the text of the raid – I don’t know what the Soliders are Solider than, or who’s the Solidest, or who ate the last “a” in “Shavarath,” but that’s a subject for a whole ‘nuther blog.) And what about the other three high council members? Did they all just go afk to bio? Did they all invoke Audience with the Queen? Are they all off saving Lyrilith harder next time? (Because she does so very much want to be saved…)

Arraetrikos, aka Harry, has an excuse at the end of Shroud, of course – he’s not actually dead, just banished back to Shavarath (with or without Soliders). And I’m not sure what effect, if any, a rez shrine would have on true undead beings such as the Black Abbot or the Truthful One; I know I can use one to bring Zak, my pale master, back to life, but Zak’s actually a Drow in undead form, not truly undead, and rezzes as a living, breathing fleshie.

But how about the Stormreaver in Fall of Truth? Xy’zzy in Hound of Xoriat? Horoth in ToD?

The only logical explanation I have for why this DOESN’T happen is that raid bosses are all members of an extreme permadeath group. But what if that changed?

Imagine the scene: your party’s just triumphed – or so you thought. You’re slapping each other on the back, comparing kill counts, eagerly opening the chests… and suddenly there’s a noise behind you, a noise that you DO NOT want to hear. Slowly you turn…

Yeah, this is one scenario where I *really* like permadeath.

Winnie isn’t really UNhappy with being a Favored Soul, but it’s not really her mission in life. It just doesn’t feel right to be swinging a big ol’ greatsword around when one doesn’t have Cleave, y’know?

So I’ve spent the past few weeks leveling her to 28, because I’m planning to TR her into a Bladeforged 18 sorc/2 pally. As I was doing all this leveling, it occurred to me that I should do some destiny farming to unlock Draconic Incarnation so she can start her next epic life off there.

Theoretically, it was a good plan. She’d already capped Divine Crusader and Unyielding Sentinel and was two levels into Exalted Angel. On her way to 28, I worked through three levels of Grandmaster of Flowers, four of Shadowdancer, and three of Fatesinger to unlock Draconic.

Yay! She’s capped! She has Draconic unlocked! I sent her all the various stuff my other toons have that they’ll want someday but can’t use now (to be stashed in her TR bank until needed instead of taking up inventory space), got her epic heart out of the bank, and headed off to Reincarnation Grove… where I hit a roadblock.

Did you notice the flaw in my plan? She “was two levels into Exalted Angel.” Yep. Two levels. Not five. Not capped. So she was about 1.2 million XP short of having six million karma in the Divine sphere, which meant she couldn’t epic TR.

I could just do a regular heroic TR, but she’s SOOOO close to being able to do an epic one, it’d be silly to not take that as well. Looks like it’s back to the XP grind for Winnie!

With the Mimic Hunt over and a fresh set of completed sagas under my belt, I dragged myself out of DDO a bit early (for me) tonight and did some much-overdue updating of OurDDO.

Mostly I added some links I was missing and updated a few that had changed  (one of these days I should probably take some time to check all the links and make sure they all still exist). It was tedious and time-consuming, but not particularly difficult.

Finished all the editing, did the icons for the blogs that were added, and uploaded all the shiny new files… and now my RSS aggregator script – the handy little thing that goes out and gets all the blog posts and puts them on the page – is dropping posts like crazy. Again.

As far as I can tell, it’s only picking up the most recent post from each author. So if you posted a blog yesterday and then post a new one today, only the new one will show up.

I’ve changed nothing in that script (I wouldn’t even know how). Hopefully, as last time, it will resolve itself over the next few days.

To be brutally honest it was bad. Not the run, we managed fine, but I hadn’t realised how bad the artificer DPS was at high levels. Or maybe it’s my artificer DPS. I admit I haven’t spent much time getting him the latest & greatest gear, but he was very slow to clear out the bad guys…

I was quite annoyed and decided I had to TR him. I asked Rach if she’d mind helping and she agreed, as she has been wanting to TR her cleric for a while. Unfortunately I also wanted to eTR him and he has no epic destiny spheres fully completed (did I mention he doesn’t get played much?). I had nearly 2 million XP to get.

There was a lovely sunset in the High Road the other day

The problem I have is when I get an idea in my head to do something – I have to do it. So on Sunday morning Rach & I ran all the obvious XP heavy quests we could think of that we felt we could manage and got a few saga’s completed. We knew we wouldn’t be able to run eE with just the two of us, so eH was the level of choice – and I was still pretty crappy! In Devils Assault Rach’s cleric had a much higher kill count than me.

My crappy kill count :(

Unfortunately running like that meant the XP was slow in going up. It’s one of the few times in recent years I’ve felt that getting XP was an actual grind :( But on Sunday evening when we jumped on, a guild party was running High Road then Wheloon eE. We jumped in with that, I picked up a 50% XP pot and…. wow! I have some great guildies :) By the end of the night I had reached the XP I needed (plus a bit extra in another sphere). Even more surprising Aldrac pointed out we were pretty much running a balanced party: 1 cleric, 2 barbarians, 1 paladin, 1 ranger and my artificer. And since I could do all the traps and locks I felt useful (since I know I didn’t help much with the kills).

So hopefully in the next few days I’ll rebuild Othala as a sorcerer (I enjoyed my caster lives on Hymm and decided I could do with a permanent version) and I believe Rach is doing the same as we both want 3 sorc lives then 3 wizard. Both of us running as casters could be lots of nuking fun or a complete disaster :D I guess we’ll see!

And to finish, here’s a picture of one of my guildies in his barbarian life dual wielding bouquets of flowers :D

Flower power…

Have fun, see you around :)

Hey gang…yes, the entire hand-full of you :)

I just wanted to hop-on and say hi, and that I’m still here. Thanks for the new follows (DDOCentral, EvenNote, and Draculetta), as well as the unbeknownst phantom-prodding (by way of new views) to get blogging again.

So what am I up to in DDO?

Well, I finally decided to go for Completionist on one of my characters, Thanatopsys. He already had a Fighter and Ranger life under his belt, and was sitting at 27 as a Pale Master Swashbuckler. In retrospect, I suppose I should have just leveled to cap for an Epic Reincarnation, and then True Reincarnate back to level 1. But this would have required an additional 3.4 million XP for the Karma requirement, since I had been all over the place in previous Epic lives and not concentrated in one ED Sphere. Instead, I fixated on grinding Greater Tokens of the Twelve for The Master’s Gift augment for the extra 5% XP boost for levels 1-4. Since I solo mostly, I decided to run Chronoscope on as many characters as I could in hopes of pulling the five needed tokens. It only took a few days before I had the 5 needed to craft that pretty little augment.

I decided a Sorc life would be next, so I could get it out of the way (not a big fan) with my last Otto’s Irresistible Box. I also would benefit from the +1 to Evocation DC’s when I am on a Druid life. During the building phase I went back and forth between multiclassing and pure, and decided on pure just to power my way through to the next TR. After the TR, and one Wizard Past Life richer, I headed straight to the Bank in the Harbor, grabbed my newly crafted augment and dropped it into my Level 1 Bronkarz’s Cloak. I ran to my Guild Airship, buffed, drank a Sovereign XP potion, consumed my Stone, and BOOM! level 19 (well 18 and a few ranks).

Somewhere along the leveling plan (as is almost always the case), my plans quickly changed. I decided to throw-in some Wizard levels so that I could play a bit with Shiradi Champion (already maxed) once I hit 20, while I completed the two Heroic Sagas in the Forgotten Realms for some ED XP. Of course this revelation only occurred after I took 14 Sorc levels, locking me out of the 2 Favored Soul split (for Just Rewards).

I toyed around with the idea of now going to 28 for that Epic Reincarnation, but decided that I didn’t enjoy the character enough to suffer through all the Epic levels with a 14/6 split that should have been a 12/6/2. So just finished the Sagas and swapped over to Fatesinger to collect the XP reward so that I could grab an easy level there, which netted me another Fate Point…Huzzah!

Now it’s time to TR and move into a Paladin life for that Heal Amp.

On the one hand, players asked for years for raid bypasses. I wouldnt be surprised to see that the first post after originally announcing the DDO Store was asking for raid bypasses. They are a very popular item, and rightly so. They also are probably still one of the top selling items (not everyone has cards or timers left). Reducing the use of this item, that as varg pointed out is an item many people have paid for, is very dangerous water.

On the other hand the ability for players, particularly high end game players, to grind out what they want from a raid in 2 weeks never to run it again is a serious problem. It leads those players to wait impatiently for the next thing and/or burn out on the raid. they have no desire to run the raid any more after a much shorter than traditionally seen. It also leads to a “generational” gap in the raiding scene. Historically, these are the players that learn the raid and teach it to others, who teach it to others and so on. You end up with several generations of players running the raid. I would hazard a guess (without really paying attention) that players being able to “finish” a raid so fast before the next generation is ready to run it severely limits the ability of that generation to get into the raid as much as they used to.

So whats the solution? Its probably not full proof, but this humble thinker would look at adding some kind of carrot to the raiding scene. Not just the new raid – ALL of the (epic) raids. This carrot should piggy back off the quest ransack feature. Lets say if your quest ransack xp penalty on the particular raid is more than 50% you can’t get it.

That carrot could be raid loot – it would allow for higher drop rates without as many concerns about drop rates needing to account for raid bypasses (i have no idea if they do or not, but would surmise it would be so). But that doesnt really get us anywhere since the assumption is you will only get raid loot at 20th runs.

Heroic Commendations? it has potential, but that system is only used in 2 raids which have a function. It would require developing other functions for the items.

Comms of Valor? there’s more potential here, but I think you again need to develop more things to do with them that are meaningful. I’m only using them for hearts right now and the heart seeds on lvl 28 completions doesnt make this compelling for me.

A new ingredient? I am not a fan of new ingredients, but something that can be used for fun compelling things? limiting the ingredient to ALL epic raids (seriously, all of them) has some interesting potential. Their drop amounts can be adjusted based on the raid. Its another barter system (again, more barters? jeez) but imagine if you could turn in varying amounts of these epic raid ingredients for some really fun stuff. Things like actual raid items (who’s cost could be adjusted based on which raid its from like their drop rates), Tomes of all sorts of sizes (they are already in the store), astral shards?, hearts of all kinds of wood (cough lesser cough), xp/slayer/guild pots, mirrors of glammering? – there are a lot of possibilities to explore down this route and it opens the possibility of new life to older epic raids (seriously, if this route is taking, all epic raids get the epic raid ingredient in appropriate amounts). Varying purchase items can have appropriate costs relative to each other and the chem to get them. And there’s a real incentive to run raids – even ones you are “done” with – and not just run them, but only run them a limited time per toon. Hey, i could even see these epic raid ing as being BTC.

and there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from running the raid 20 times in a weekend.

This is also posted in a DDO Forum thread discussing the issue

“So a group of Adventurers walk into a bar… again”

This last Wednesday, I had the opportunity and pleasure of running Acute Delirium with Jerry (Cordovan), our DDO Community Specialist, in DDO’s live twitch stream on Ghallanda. It was fun, albeit very painful. I forgot how annoying that quest can be if you’re just not ready for it. Luckily, we did have a level 28 cleric, Budstein with us, who kept us alive throughout! Thanks Budstein! However, it was still a rough ride and I think the only person with more deaths than me was Jerry. Poor guy. By the end of it, all his equipment had been broken or nearly broken. Thank goodness for Paladin’s equipment saving enhancement that I happened to have just to work up toward my divine might enhancement.

I didn’t find the Monsters in that quest all that tough, specially when I was able to get my sneak attack in, but the Frost beholders seemed to me what was killing us with their ice attacks that were hitting us for an easy 200+ damage a pop, not to mention they were downing our precious bookcases and beds in a matter of a single shot or so. The horror! I later realized some tips that people were posting on doing the quest included Invisibility on the bookcases, ect, when I looked back at the stream and Jerry had been talking. I wish he said something in chat about it. :/ I totally forgot about that! He logically assumed, no casters = no invis, but I had a stack full of invis scrolls for a reason. Casters still would have helped make the quest a lot easier though. And as Sincletica pointed out to me last night as well… so would have monks. haha! Of course.

But we had what we had, and me managed anyways. Toward the end of the bookcase march, I focused primarily on reconstructing the bookcases and let everyone else handle the trash. I was gonna die reconstructing those things, if I had to! It worked. I was excited, and we made it to Kyber where we faced down the giant Beholder and retrieved the mimic. (PSA: When you are smashing the beholder’s Ganglia, make sure to have some Acid resist. >.< Whew.. I almost fell to a giant spray of acid a couple of times.) That’s one of those quest I don’t run very often, and I had forgotten why. It was still a pleasantly good time though, and all of us withstood till the end, even if Jerry did seem a little nervous toward the end. Haha.

If you want to see the full video, you can watch it at http://www.twitch.tv/ddostream

You can of course, catch it live every Wednesday at Noon EST. He’ll be around to different servers as well, so you can also catch him live and join up with his group yourself!

Tumble

Ability Modifier: dexterity

Active/Passive: passive – this would seem like an active skill since you have to perform a key command, but the movement triggers a tumble (there isn’t actually a tumble roll for this) just as falling triggers a check (actually in DDO there is no roll, but there is for PnP

Class skill for: bard, monk, and rogue

Untrained use? Technically no, you can not use tumble if you are untrained.  However, if you attempt to tumble (move while blocking) you will still move in little hop steps.  It’s not as fancy but it is similar.

Armor check penalty? Yes

Feat modifiers: acrobatic +2

What it represents: your acrobatic skills and your ability to move with agility.  In other words, your ability to perform an Olympic Games quality gymnastics floor routine.

How it affects gameplay: first and foremost, tumble reduces the amount of falling damage you take. The higher your tumble skill the higher you can fall without taking damage.

When blocking you can use the movement keys to tumble in various directions.  Increasing your tumble skill allows you to tumble farther distances with each movement and can also change your movement animations into various rolls and tumbles.

Tumbling does not add to AC, but a skilled player can use tumbling to avoid being hit.  At higher skill levels a tumble can cover some impressive distance quickly (even matching a character moving with haste).

Special considerations: you can use the tumble spell to increase your tumbling ability, however you will not gain the benefits of tumbling unless you have 1 full rank.

With the feat mobility you gain a +4 bonus to AC when tumbling but only if you have 1 full rank in tumble.  This is regardless of what your total tumble skill modifier is so even a heavily armored tank with 1 rank in tumble and a negative modifier can gain the benefits of this AC boost.

The monk slow fall ability acts similar to tumble in reducing falling damage but also actually slows your fall speed until it maxes out as a full blown feather fall effect.

Who likes it: highly skilled twitch players, circus performers, and folks who can’t sit (their avatar) still.

How much should you have? Generally, I would tell anyone to throw 2 skill points into tumble to get 1 rank (or 1 point for those few who have it as a class skill) so they can gain some benefits from tumble, especially in combination with the spell.

A new player might find some benefit from a bit of tumble until they can acquire feather fall items or the spell.  This will aid them in a few areas with long drops.  However, veterans will simply use feather falling items as gear swaps for long falls (as a note you can swap these items in and out for long falls to fall faster – note you cannot do this by toggling a monk’s slowfall ability off and on).

Otherwise, there’s not a lot of benefit to investing in the tumble skill.  A few players are skilled enough to effectively use tumble to dodge attacks, however this is a fairly advanced skill and even so is quite cumbersome.

Highly skilled tumblers are fun to watch though!

Use Magic Device (UMD)

Ability Modifier: charisma

Active/Passive: passive – the skill is part of the action to use the magical device

Class skill for: artificer, bard, and rogue

Untrained use? No – and that’s good cause you’d probably blow yourself up

Armor check penalty? No

Class, Racial and feat modifiers: artificers gain +2 to UMD to use various types of items as they level up (scrolls at level 1, wands at 3 and so on).

What it represents: your ability to use magical items (such as scrolls) that you would otherwise be unable to use (or would cause to explode if you tried).

How it affects gameplay: there are 2 uses for UMD.  The first is to use restricted items that you don’t qualify for.  These are either alignment restrictions or racial restrictions.  Restrictions do not require a roll to bypass but are instead a straight comparison to your modifier.  Alignment restrictions are pretty consistent usually a UMD of 20.  Using UMD to use an alignment restricted item will not negate the negative level that you may get for using an item that is of an opposing alignment.  Racial restrictions reduce the minimum level of an item by 2 and their UMD is based off of the level and type of item thus giving them a greater range.  Items can have both restrictions and will require you to pass both restrictions individually, either by meeting them or using UMD to bypass them.  The needed UMD for restrictive items is listed in their descriptions and some restrictive items cannot be bypassed by UMD while other alignment based items have no UMD needed (but still may impose a negative level).

The second use of UMD is to use a wand or scroll.  As with restrictive items the needed UMD is in the item description but this time a skill check roll is made giving you a variability of 20 (1 is not an automatic fail). The UMD score needed is determined by the level of the spell and a charge/scroll is used whether or not you succeed or fail (remember that you may also need to make a concentration check if you get hit).  Wand and scroll DCs are usually 18 + twice the spell level.

Special considerations: you can meet requirements for using scrolls and wands by meeting the class and level requirements listed in the item descriptions.  Wands typically only require 1 level of a class that can cast the spell. Scrolls require the level and class able to cast the spell normally, but characters just shy of this can make a caster level check to use a scroll of slightly higher level.

Arcane scrolls are subject to arcane spell failure if you are wearing armor.

Some artificer scrolls require a higher DC.

The standard UMD benchmark to hit is 39 which lets you use heal scrolls without fail (DC of 40 – reachable with a 39 because you roll at least a 1). A lower mark to hit is 20 so you can use some of the alignment restricted items (pure good being the most useful).

Who likes it: everyone. Even if you don’t have it, that guy who has saved your party a few times by using UMD to raise the party.  Also, the technically challenged.

How much should you have? Go big or go home.  If you are taking UMD then get as much as you can and find some items you can swap in to boost yourself to UMD mode.  It might mean some of your other capabilities suffer, but you are probably using UMD to keep yourself or others alive so that likely takes precedence.  UMD characters that can swing in to bolster party healing can easily be the difference in a quest and raid being successful or a failure.  I have not only swung in to heal with my UMD toons but I have done raids primary healing with my artificer. Rogues, bards, and artificers should not only get UMD, but they should also consider taking at least a few levels of scroll mastery to augment their heal scrolling.  If you are going to be using UMD in this manner, you want to get to mid 30s.

If you just want to be able to raise dead, well then you should be going for heal scrolls – it’s only 1 spell level difference.

If you can’t at least maintain a UMD of 20 to use restrictive gear then there is no point in taking UMD.  Anything restrictive less than 20 isn’t worth using at higher levels.  

Well, hell’s bells!

But, first a little about my playstyle…I have been playing DDO for 7 years (a little past launch) and have only capped 2 characters (extreme altaholic here), one of which is on his first TR journey.  This leaves my level 22 Artificer (Antikitherah Al’Emrys), who is sitting comfortably in Shiradi 4 with only 1 twist (Cocoon…she’s a Helf), enjoying all the oddball procs that are bundled with Double Rainbow stance :)

In these 7 years, I have really only PUG’d a couple of times (not too bad), soloed 97% of the time, with a little grouping with transient player-friends thrown-in for good measure.  This being said, I have not raided much (a few solo runs in Chronoscope, and more recently some solo normal runs with that bitchy red head in the desert), nor have I any real endgame loot.  In my quest to “gear-up” now that I have some free time to kill (pun implied), I’ve been running around in various Elite difficulties in the Harbor and Desert for scrolls and stuff (I’m looking at you Golden Guile).  After ransacking the Servant’s chest on EN and running Lord’s of Dust, scoring little more than a pittance of Token Fragments (hey, at least I have enough to make one Token), I decided to take on the first room of the Wizard King while waiting for my Panther summon timer to expire, so that I could continue to ransack the General’s chest for the Ring of Spell Storing.

I figured I’d get a little XP from killing the Den Mother in Elite Wizard King and perhaps find a scroll or something.  After clearing the room on EN and getting nothing more than 1 Token Fragment, I decided to up my ante and resolved to go in on EH the next time.  Although a tad more difficult, I didn’t have too many issues on EH thanks to Pin and Otto’s Whistler.  It was here that I saw my first Seal (Staff of Arcane Power, of which I don’t even have the base item) ever!  There it was in the locked chest in the first room, and I thought to myself, hmm, that’s what they look like…I was so proud of my self.

Another jaunt to the General (who of course wasn’t there) and I was back inside the Wizard King (wait, that doesn’t sound right), but on EE!!!  What can I say, I really felt like testing myself.  So, I throw-on every buff I can and head inside to discover just how quickly I would meet my demise.  I pull the first Gnoll and Pin him while backing up, ready to strike with Otto’s Whistler once he breaks free from my Pin.  This happens (he’s about 1/2 down at this point) and now I got him dancing; he doesn’t last long after that.  Now I’m thinking to myself that I can handle this, if only I can keep everything at a distance, and of course don’t waste a Pin or Otto’s Whistler with a reload animation.  At this point I am really only concerned about getting tripped by the Hyenas, which at this level is automatic if they get close.

The next couple of alcoves are cleaned-out fairly easily, with IPS and some trick-shots getting 2-3 Gnolls pinned and dancing at the same time.  Even with the pinning, dancing, and paralyzing (due to Nerve Venom), being outside of PBS range was killing my DPS, even with blasts from my Corruption of Nature (it was hard to get a full blast of 5 shots due to constantly moving).  I probably should have laid-down all of my Endless Fullisade’s, but you know what they say about hindsight.  Healing Spring and Rejuvenating Cocoon was enough to keep me mostly capped on health and only a few stuns and Greater Commands to worry about.  Now it was time to head-up the ramp and see what I could get into.  It’s here where everything went pear-shaped.

I gingerly advance up the left ramp to pull the first Gnoll and pin him.  This is accomplished, and I’m now heading down the ramp, charging my Rune Arm and volleying bolts .  I then notice that everyone else is moving around too…crapballs!  So I do my best to line as many of them up (a difficult thing to do with the elevation of the ramp) and hit Pin.  I get a few of them, but all of sudden I’m stunned…great!  Next comes a Greater Command and I’m on the floor with the whole Pound Puppy brigade heading my way.  Luckily I’m up before the next stun hits and am able to pop-off a Cocoon for an additional 150 HPs and a handful of mediocre ticks of healing.  This is enough to allow me to put some difference between me and the rabid horde.  I am able to Pin and dance a few of them, but in survival mode I’m in no position to take advantage of their Helpless states.  Unfortunately, all of the casters are now down in the middle of the room with me and I’m trying to make my way back to the hallway to bottle neck them a bit.

Needless to say, with spams of Greater Command and being Stunned and Slowed, I died.  But hey, I think I did rather well.  This being said, I was not going to give-up on that chest!  After getting a Seal on EH, I could only imagine the riches that awaited me inside an EE chest!  So I rez’d and was able to pick-off the remaining 3 Gnolls one by one (fairly easy to do when one can stay upright).  With the room cleared I headed for the chest, all the while envisioning the goodies that must be all snuggled-up inside, next to the crest.  I stop to ponder the riches…then I pop the chest and…nothing!

Oh well.  At least this little (but Epic) adventure showed me two things: 1) Seals do exist…now to get confirmation of Scrolls and Shards ;) and 2) I can survive 20 mobs on EE, with only dying once

.myrddinman

It’s been 2 month since I played DDO at all, and 4 months since I’ve been on my Main Character, Kobay. Recently, I managed to settle a deal with a pretty decent company and get my internet turned on in my new place. One of the first things I did was Update DDO and log on. Of course, eh? What else would you do? There are several things I notice right up front and none of them have anything to do with updates, though there are some of those too.

First off, it’s been 2 months! I hardly remember where any of my hotkeys are are coordinate my fingers to move around like I used to. Sad story. I managed though and of course, I’m sure I’ll get back into the hang of it with time, but I’m still not satisfied. I feel like marching around my house with a picket sign saying, “FREE KOBAY!” (Which is not only my Gamer tag I go by, but my Main Character’s name.) Now, Kobay happens to be a Druid/Monk Half Elf. I do not have access to either Druid nor Half Elf since I turned off my subscription 4 months ago at the request of my woman. (The things we do for love.)

A lot of it also had to do with the fact we were planning on moving fairly soon, although it didn’t end up actually happening till about 2 months later. Still, we needed to scrape up every bit of cash we could. So, Kobay got locked away. :( The downsides of the VIP side. Oh well.

Now it is close to the end of the month and she is waiting till the beginning of next month to turn my subscription back on. Something about ‘time frames’ and I don’t know. Women. So picky about how they do things. Basically she wants to make sure that when my subscription fee comes up, it’s always at the beginning of the month, cause she doesn’t trust me with leaving the money on our card. (I say “Our” but I mean her’s.)

Regardless, the anticipation is killing me and I can’t wait to get back in on the action I feel like I’ve been missing forever. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my downtime too. I really got a lot accomplished during the time I’ve been away from my favorite addiction, but now that things are settling down, I have a lot of extra time to fiddle my thumbs and count sheep, that I could be using to get a strong dose of kicking Devil and Drow butt. Which is even more exciting, because I feel like I’m now getting a fresh approach to the game. I know it, but at the same time… it’s more refreshing than it was when I stopped a couple months ago.

On top of that, Turbine as changed up the website, I have a new Monitor with a nice resolution, a new Microphone that a friend of mine decided I needed. A good reason to have friends. Free stuff. It’s almost like a totally new game for me, but with the same old classic DDO that I know and love.

Of course there are the few things that have not been so refreshing. The new UI settup that came with the daily dice and such in Update 17 Patch 1 is a little meh. I hate the mail icon being so small. It’s rather annoying. The enhancement stuff, that I had been waiting in anticipation for doesn’t look so great, though I’m not going to jump the bandwagon on that just yet. It is still in a very early stage and A LOT could change before it even goes live. I’ll just bite my tongue for now. There are some neat enhancement changes though, regardless. The forum change, I’m a little on the fence about. Some odd stuff, but it does look more professional.

And of course, My.DDO is finally gone. You will be missed, my friend.

R.I.P. My.DDO April 29th, 2013

So. The long awaited Enhancement Pass has finally debuted on the Lammania Preview Server. I’ve taken so time to have a look (from the perspective of Belgarim, my Tempest Trapmonkey) and will be giving you my thoughts.

But first, some What It Is and What It’s Not and a word on the Test Dojo.

The Test Dojo is a new feature in Lammaland (possibly only available during this preview, not sure). Basically its a place to Build, Gear, and Test a character. You access the area thru a door in the Marketplace, near the Harbor Gate. Once inside, you will have access to Reincarnation Trainer, XP, and TP vendors, a floor full of all kinds of level appropriate and high end named gear, CR:0 Kobolds to kill, Class trainers, Augment vendors, basically everything you need to have a successful testing experience on Lammania. I love this feature. Now on to the Enh pass.

What It Is is a complete overhaul of the UI and Skills of our Enhancement System. The old ‘List View’ system we have now is gone. *Ron – You’ll be needing to overhaul your Character Planner if you intend for it to stay relevant* What we’re seeing is a panel and tree type system, similar to the current Epic Destiny look and feel we have on Live now. It comes with 4 panels: 1 for Racial Enhancements, and 3 for any Class Prestige Enhancements your character may have access to. A dropdown in each panel allows you to select which PrE you’d like to slot and invest in, to a maximum of 3. In other words, a character with 3 PrE’s in one class, like Ranger, could invest in all 3 of Tempest, Arcane Archer, and Deepwood Stalker. Or a multiclass toon could invest in one to three PrEs from each of their class splits. Level restrictions and AP cost restrictions would naturally apply.

The preview is coming in week long stages, with only a handful of classes available at one time, for now.  Once the 3 week ‘focused’ feedback preview ends, they will unlock all the classes at once. Here’s a link to the relevant Dev posts, including ‘Event’ info:

Early Preview Info

Event Info

In the What Its Not column, we have this: The dev team did NOT complete all class’ PrEs; neither do all classes have 3 PrEs, nor do some PrEs have all 3 Tiers. If you, like me, were expecting a complete PrE pass as promised, you will be disappointed. And speaking of disappointments, let me get straight to my thoughts on the Ranger line.

Quoted from my response in the Official discussion thread:

After a lot more playing with this on my Tempest, I have the following thoughts:

1) The general class tree needs to happen.
There are just too many abilities that have been arbitrarily stuffed into specific PrE trees where they do not belong. Prominent examples would be:

Favoured Enemy lines.
Haste/Sprint/Skill/Attack/Damange/Resist boosts.
Item Defense
Improved Reaction/Defense/Awareness/Mobility
Critical Accuracy/Defense
Energy of the Wild
Devotion

All of these abilities are Ranger abilities, not specific PrE abilities, and requiring AP spent in the various trees is counter intuitive, expensive, confusing, and unnecessary. Devotion is completely absent, and that just doesn’t fly at all.

2) The Core abilities row should more accurately represent their relevant PrE tiers
AA and DS Cores look pretty good but they are not my Main’s PrE so I’m not very qualified to comment.
Tempest Cores have some glaring omissions:

Shield of Whirling Steel should include +x to PRR, increasing with each Core ability
Attack penalty reductions from the old Tempest line seem to be missing

Graceful Death doesn’t belong in the Core row

3) Either/Or choices on Boosts need to go away
There is no sense in forcing these either or decisions. Haste boost and Sprint boost for example are completely unrelated skills. If I choose to invest AP into both, I should be able to.

4) Cooldowns and Durations on top Tier abilities seem arbitrary and uneccesary.
IF there were some synergistic effects between two abilities, I could see forcing the player to micromanage their timers. However, the current stock of top tier abilities are not strategicially deep enough to warrant this. In effect we are simply waiting for cooldowns to end and then clicking to refresh them. That could have been accomplished more gracefully by making them passive abilities with their own invisible timers/proc rates.

5) PrE Tiers in general have been reworked and renamed from the live system.
This breaks ToD ring set bonuses. Abilities on all of the PrE Core abilities row need to be renamed to reflect the live systems Tiers in order to remain compatible with ToD sets. That or rework ToD rings. I’d assume renaming the new Core abilities would be easier since that’s what we’re working on now.

Overall, the Ranger panels look to be the best and most well thought out of the current preview’s crop. Within that, Tempest and Deepwood look like the best and most well thought out, while Arcane Archer seems to have been pieced together at the last minute to resemble the current AA. Obviously, everything needs its AP costs slashed, AP spent prereqs reworked, and ‘arrow’ prereqs reworked or removed altogether.
Also, most of the above applies to the racial trees as well, particularly the Core row issues.

Full description of currently available Ranger abilities

So, in closing, I do recommend to everyone that they hit Lammania and have a look. There’s a lot to see, both good and bad, and the Dev’s are asking for our input.

Should be interesting.

So, lately I’ve been solo farming Cannith Challenges for Tier3 Epic Spare Hand. That means eLabour Shortage, eDragon’s Hoard, and ePicture Portals. I’m done with Labour and Portals, just have Dragon’s Hoard left to run. It’s a pretty easy challenge to complete, 150 shards in 20 minutes. You can also fairly easily get 2 optionals: Let the Foreman Die, and Kill the Dragon Auraxyllon.

Well, I didn’t have a chance to login yesterday, and I usually don’t try to play in the morning before work, but this a.m. I had 25 minutes to kill and I thought I’d take a run at it.

The run went well, easily got my 150 shards, so I went off in search of Auraxyllon. He happened to be in the 1st of his 3 possible spawn points, yay. He did me the courtesy of dying with time to spare, yay +1. I let the clock run out and got ported back to House Cannith. Good haul of Epic Enchanted Armors, 224, yay +2. Then I toddled off to the bar to open my supply chests, sell, repair, and logout for work. And what should I find? Check it:

Yay +3! Literally!

Ok, a +3 Con tome may not seem like much, but I’ve been looking for that tome on this toon for 2 years now. And to find it in an easily farmable Supply Chest, first thing in the morning before work, on a Friday, well, you can see how this may have made my day. :)

The moral: Dragons are good for your health :)

BOgre.

this post may be mirrored on GeoffHanna’s DDOGamer.com

A Side Note:

Many of us myDDO refugees are finding new places to blog, and many of us have found our way to Evennote’s OurDDO. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out. If you’re already linked to it, and are blogging, I’d like to recommend something. It may be a good idea to add your byline to your posts, with a link to your actual blog site. The OurDDO feed doesn’t handle all blog title links very well, and what’s more, since we’re viewing the blog posts from an RSS feed, it can be tough to figure out who wrote what. Just a suggestion, but I think it would go a long way to improve readability from within the OurDDO framework. Happy Blogging :)

B.