Last night, I did some crafting and playing around with trying to get a bit of an AC and ended up with a 49 for questing. An extra point here or there; including a 55% shot to use a 5 min shield wand, with only a trinket swap.

With my new AC I headed in to the desert sands with the guys.

A quick run for seals and we are back in the WizKing. It went fairly smooth. The wife and I took a tower, and Tobril and Fopo took a tower and then we meet up and did the 3rd tower. Nice and easy.

Then it was proposed that we head to elite OoB (Offering of Blood). It went fairly smooth. There was some confusion with what doors we were running past and what ones we were hitting. Okay that was 90% me running past side doors. 🙂

But to deal with a lot of the agro I ended up going ranged and kept moving. Kitting at times until everyone was ready to go. Manyshot and saved Ki to fire 10KS made many bad men go away.

So when we decided to hit up Chains of Pain. I decided to have some fun and stay ranged. Tobril lead the quest but I took care of guys on ledges and used my paralyzing bow to add a little CC to our run. The end fight, which can be a pain, went super smooth. 10KS the named knoll and manyshot + a lighting strike or two helped with Rashad.

Then Elite DQ 6man, At this point the TR group dropped to 3. We each picked up a hireling. To help with the healing. The side rooms went quickly. The queen fights were different. I was the kiter. Tobril used touched of death and Imp Sunder as much as possible. Fo’s Barb helped as he could but I think he was on yelling at the hireling to heal everyone duty. 5 or 6 deaths and one long fight later we sent her packing. The end fight was also more of the same. But with a little more room it was about 5x quicker and about 100 times easier. No deaths.

All in all I am really enjoying the change of pace ranged combat is giving me.

I kinda talked about 10K Stars yesterday. But I got some more time to play with it last night. I currently get 4 arrows in 3 shots. Sometimes 5 in 3, or even once and a while 6, in 3. But the 4 in 3 is about average with a 25 wisdom. For 20 Ki and locking out Manyshot it is good enough. It beats normal ranged, but falls short of Manyshot by a large margin. But anything better then normal is good right?

❤

Lets just call it a rough night and we can all just move along. Kay?

Last night I racked up, 3 or 4 deaths in short order. It started with Red Fins quests on elite which was fine. Although I took a stun to the face after messing up pulling the daddy scorp before the lava. And bit it hard. But I was not the only death in claw so it was okay.

Then we moved on to that level 10 desert walk up with a seal for Wisking, And it went well enough. Got the seal and was leaving when a member got taken out by the red skull alert we were rocken.

So I thought I would pop over to the other walk up and complete the set real fast. I made the run finished the quest and took a stun and died. Again?

Fine. Release and rebuff.

As I am talking to the wife there is some talk of leveling. I guess I confused Tobril on the amount of xp I could bank before capping out the level. So we went ahead and leveled to 13.

I end up did taking that 6th monk level I talked about yesterday. And for the record, 10Kstars is not Manyshot. Or at least it isn’t with a 21 wisdom. I have seen some guess work on how it might work and from what I have seen a 21 to 30 is about the same odds of extra arrows/stars. I am going to think of it as baby Manyshot. It lasts a little longer, and has half the cool down but it is a lot less then Manyshot, better then normal ranged however.

So we get started in wis king. As I have already ran the other seal quest; I zerg it and get the seal real fast. While they get started clearing.

The first tower goes well. We get back down and the spinning blade trap pops up trapping me. I look around and Fo is not around. So jump over them. Or not. I hit the top of the room and fall like a brick into a spinning blade. Before I hit the ground I am dead. Looking at the log I failed a save on a 15+17 (I had my death block on not my evasion gear) and again on a 1. Together it was well over 600 points of damage. I have a lot of hit points but that many.

The wife and Tobril took of to do the quest, while Fo and I took the longest possible way to get around. If there was a hole, I fell into it. And if there was a slay living cast, it killed Fo. It was quite the ordeal. And I was full on tilt. I am kinda surprised that I didn’t just get pissed off and quit for the night, but I swapped on to one of my capped FvS and bought 40$ worth of wood, and then logged.

Not my best night. Let me tell you.

❤

Hope you all had a nice long weekend, I took Wednesday at lunch until this morning off and it was super. Tobril made the drive down and we had our normal Turkey day fest surrounded with much xp farming. Saturday afternoon, when he had to go the TR group was level 12, most of us had xp for 13 and are holding back leveling until we are forced to level. I also fired up my sons premium account and piked his level 8 pally to level 13ish.

But I want to share the run down of how the bowonk has been doing.

My 36 point version following the plan as close as possible. I had to move the barb past live feat to level 3 because I am dumb; I didn’t remember that I had to wait until then for past life feats… But other then that it works.

1-8:
These early levels were a little different, at 8 I was 6ranger, 1monk, 1 fighter. I tried to play monkish, while leveling up, but I think I would have had more fun playing rangerish. Using wraps in wind stance with the two weapon feats from ranger are not bad dps. But will always put you behind your fellow group members that have more monk levels and in my case have the monk past life feats.

That said I was never far behind in the kill count, and most of the time after the fighter level I was ahead even. Fighter Haste boost for the win. By the way, if you don’t know you can use a race boost and a class boost at the same time. So Fighter haste + human damage equals good times. Also human to hit or damage + manyshot also equals good times.

At 8 elven archer comes on line and makes life more fun. Force arrows + silver longbow = good times.

9-10:

Level 9 starts the monky goodness. Evasion is a huge boon; 9 also gives to feats for Stunning Fist & Zen Archery. 10 gives extra movement speed to help with running around in earth stance all the time, as well as slow fall so you can look bad ass when jumping off tall things raining death on the bad men.

Back to running around in earth stance all the time, not only does this give extra Hp and pre damage DR that works with your normal DR. Earth stance sets us up to use normal Stonedust wraps + jidz for a damage die step boost and stone skin guard which is a boon even if your using your Bloodrage Symbiont.

11 brings the old shroud gear on line, including something I don’t get to talk up a lot my 3X neg goggles. They are hp, immunities, immunities + slay living guard. Phlor had a pair on his Pally that were all immunities and I didn’t see the love. But when I went to make the my last shroud hp item. (I like to spread out my HP items so I can swap out any one part of them and not loose 45 hp. Takes some work to and at least 40 shrouds but I think it is worth it.) I decided it would be good to have all those immunities for my low level TR lives. And the Slay living guard is so so. Well this life it has saved me at least 3 times. Once I has fighting an orange named drinking pots trying to get him before he got me. I was sundered and took a huge hit, 60-70 points and he got skulled. I was at 5 hp. That same quest I think I skulled a few more mobs and Tobril joked that we should just let my guards eat things.

Okay last 2 thoughts:
One I have the fighter level planed for next level mainly to get Greater Two Weapon Fighting. But I didn’t take into account the changes to Ten Thousand Stars making it Manyshot timer number 2, and how cool Shadow Fade will be. So there might be a flip flop to really love on the ranged action.

And Two: Hp I hadn’t realized how good the Hp was going to be. The barb past life feat is huge. 10 for free plus that extra 20 all at once vs 23 at cap with toughness. The fighter level also opens up that first tear of the enchantment line a few good items ie a GFL hat (thanks to cove crafting) and a level 9 +6 con belt with a med guild slot (thanks to Cannith crafting) put me ahead on the HP curve for a long time with me at level 12 running around with about 400 hp.

Final thought:

So far this is the melee for me, more so then my WF FvS or my Barb life. Highly survivable (So far I have died a total 3maybe4 times, twice from traps before evasion and once from a hundred plus crit thanks to an Imp Sunder I have had some close calls however), having good dps (think I will have a jump at 13 or 14 and again at 16), good ranged options, great self healing/Amp, good hate gen (earth stance+items) and the potential to swap in to fairly high AC mod (not super AC mind you but I could move some stats at cap and go super AC….).

Okay I hope that makes up for the long brake with no posts.

❤

And that was the hireling Cleric.

Last night the TR group sitting pretty at level 6, decided to hit the level 4s on elite. I suggested starting with one of my favorites Prof is in the Poison.

The wife and Fopo pick up cleric hirelings. Tobril and I go with lots of pots and wands claiming the other will heal us, all awhile assuming that the other person will just let us die. 🙂

We make quick time in the first room, with Fo stopping to get the traps. The wife moving in to room two.

I get across the fire bridge and into the room, just in time to see the Tor’s Clr take a battering of magic missiles. Cry about needing healz, and take a lighting bolt to the face. D E E D, Dead! (I ❤ you “The Gamers”)

About half a second later I see in the general tab Fopo’s Clr shouting something about wanting healed and DING! Let two mins of Fopo yelling at his hireling begin. Lolz, That man lives to yell at hirelings. And when they stand in traps and die it is like his verson of a bitching Mona Lisa.

Fairly quickly, we get to the shrine, everyone gets raised and shrined up. And we get to the room with acid floor and things to jump on with the level that lower a door but shoots grates up all over making a little jumping maze. Well Tobril jumps out to get the level. And he must have stepped in to the acid and took a hair of damage getting started when Fopo’s Clr shot in to the room trying to heal Tobril. Lets just say he didn’t make it. 🙂

Once Fo’s hireling started to go down Tor’s hire shot into the room, I think as a show of hireling loyalty, and died. Lets just say they got dismissed about then. 🙂

Later in a elite Irestone Inlet Fo, basically alone, went to handle the end fight as the rest of us ran to Yaaryar’s spawn point. On the way Fo started where are the heals at his hireling but a second or two later Fo and his Clr Dinged out.

I don’t know. We use the hirelings a lot. I normally let mine camp out away from the fight and go to it or call it when I need healed. I am looking forward to the day casting hires try to stay out of the melee. And/Or the day when casting hires get quicken.

“Can any one heal me? Anyone? Anyone? Where is the Healer any way? Oh shit it is me… Ding!” – Every hiring divine caster ever.

❤

This time of the year my family asks for a wish list from everyoneI don’t think I am hard to shop for, but for some reason they seem to think so. My interests are fairly well known, I think. Um Ddo, Prepping, Dice and um… toys. 🙂

So I thought one I could share my list with you all, and then maybe you all can help me out other ideas and or maybe share some of your own list. I try to give a good range of items price wise, so no one has to break the budget for me. So lets get started.

• Ddo points, is this a no brainier or what?
• Amazon gift cards. I read a lot, and now that my phone has a the kindle reader software I go through the books like mad.
• Netflix I love Netflix. And free months are great months. I use the streaming all the time.
• Iron Man anything. And now that Marvel has a Droid app Marvel gift cards might be cool.
• Tea, I am a huge tea drinker. As I think I told you all I have been more or less pop free for almost a year now. I am kinda a tea snob now. Other then some funds from my tea web site I need an adjustable temp electric kettle that can sit on my desk at work.
• Prep gear. This is my new thing. I can use things from travel med kits to cases of Yoder’s Canned Bacon. Hmmm Bacon. Including stuff like a solar charger for my cell phone, a 400 Watt Power Dome Mini Generator from ThinkGeek to a Berkey water filter from directive21.com. You can never been to ready for tough times.
  And of course items for all my little survival/urban farm projects. Building mats for my chicken coop that I will have next spring, unless I end up moving in the next few weeks.
• But if some one really wanted to get me something from the very top of the old list, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer is high on the list. I wouldn’t turn down an Ipad either. But this has some of the best reviews I have seen including a personal review from Fopo.

Alright there is my list with some clear wants. What did I miss? Add something I should on my list in comments and same as yesterday I will give one poster 500 TP.

❤ and good luck

The TR group wrapped up our xp grinding. I had a final streak of 186 ish elites. I don’t remember the number exactly, but with the final 100k xp ready I decided to do a Vod and try my luck, but the loot gods weren’t pleased with me. And I got skunked. A newer guildie however got the gloves. And a new person to the raid, who did not want to follow instructions got the goggles. So there were big winners, just not me. 😦

Anyway wrapped up our hunt for xp. And did a few epics just to get the feel of the builds we had made for leveling at epic. The 12/6/2 barb/fighter/rog I had wasn’t bad. Not great. But with the right gear and a little more work fine tuning the build with its PREs it could be real nice.

Before logging for the night we all got our Trs going. I rolled up my Bowonk build, you can find the original build for a clr I have sitting around unloved HERE. And the update I am using HERE.

I learned that I had already made an error. The Barb past life feat can’t be taken until level 3. Guess none of them can be. So much for a straight swap for Toughness on my builds. But it is great come level 3. Right now at level 5, 4 ranger and a monk level I am rocking 150 ish hp, un-raged. Not bad.

That said I did take my first death last night. We were running STK on elite. And we got to the acid traps. The wife and Tobril ran, jumped luck sacked evaded any real damage.

I on the other hand stopped and waited for Fopo to disarm the traps. He thankfully decided to take some rog levels on his barb for traps. But after a few tries, and walking up all the buffs we had available I tried the stop go method. Hit number 2 and 3 for well over 70 points a pop. Went incap for about 3 seconds but a follow up jet finished me.

Tobril, the helper he is, grabbed my stone and ran me past 2 chests and a collectible point. 😥 In all fairness before running past the fire traps he did ask if I wanted to go back. And I said no to keep the xp/per min up. But I am sure now that there were 2 ion stones in those chests with my name on them.

All in all we are making good time. We all all around 5, some a hair behind that, but most around there. We have got a good epic streak going. And a lot more balanced group then normal for us TRing. 2 bowonks, Fo on his Barb/Rog, and Tobril on a new build. I don’t know if he has named it but I am going to call it the Holy Brawler until he posts it with a proper write up. I will say it is doing very nicely so far. I think if his does everything he saids it can do at cap, and it is half as good in the end game as it is doing now, he might have a winning build on his hands. I will let you know when/if he posts the write up.

One last thing. I have 500 Tp for someone that ranks this post and leaves a comment today. I will roll off from possible winners and send out a TP code tomorrow.

❤

I am always surprised when someone asked me for advice and then takes my reply as a personal attack. I am a web programmer in RL, for a simi large company and I handle the full life cycle for our different web programs. One of the things I have learned to do well is ask the right questions to really learn what it is that the requester wants. Sometimes this is easy as the request is fairly straight forward. But most of the time I am asked for X, but they really want something that is mostly X but has a lot of Y and some Z. But with out my prodding at the front end during the planing stage I would have another request on my desk in a few weeks to a month asking to add Y and maybe Z and the protect never really completes. Better to make everyone thing it through really carefully and to do the work just once.

This comes up more often then you would think. Some times I get asked to take a look at builds from you guys. And I am always happy to do so. You can email me samius @ ddococktailhour.com and I will take a look.

And from guildies and other friends. Tobril and I have had more “arguments” via email talking about builds then we have had about every other topic together; Including if girl X is hot or not.

So a friend emails me about building an artificer/ half elf arcane archer. This was my reply:

Why?

Xbows and Arrows don’t mix.

Rune Arms and bows don’t mix.

Now I meant “Why?” from a place of curiosity. Because if it was to have a dominate range build I could half see it see something. Enough ranger for Manyshot, enough monk for Ten Thousand Stars, and the rest artificer. Some kind of punch for ki, Ten Thousand Stars, Manyshot, Ten Thousand Stars swap to a repeater/arm until Manyshot is back or back to punching for ki to start again or using the one of the artificer’s Manyshot thing.

But with out the “why” of a build I can’t help suggest changes or build options.

When I have an idea for a build I talk to Tobril. He is my sounding board. Often he replies like I do, asking pointed questions to get me to think more about what I am trying to do. Sometimes the best thing he can do is call a build a vale build. Meaning content up to and including the vale will be easy. But when the build is really tested past the vale it most likely will fail.

That is the prompt to prove with numbers that it can stand on its own legs. If not then it goes into the scrap heap. I remember back when I was trying to get the Bowonk out. He and I went back and forth for a long time after he said that it might be a vale build.

Not long ago I was re-sharing an updated bowonk build to include 10kS and he replied “Seriously though, I think this design is kinda neat” I think I may have finally won him over.

Now we are talking about another monk/pally build. Hey….

❤

I wasn’t going to talk about this but I am still a little pissed so why not. Last night the TR group ran a shroud. And I don’t think the changes to part 4 are all that bad. Just takes a little bit OF DOING WHAT THE HELL THE RAID LEADER SAYS!!!

Okay with that aside I want to get to the point of this post. But to be upfront I want to say I know what it is like to not think of yourself and be expected to heal due to your icon.

However, when you join a raid with 16 levels in a divine class and you are asked to heal. Do so or DROP! You can give out warnings that your not much of a healer. And that is fine. I don’t expect you to be flawless. But when I ask can I count on you, and you say something like your my anchor or yes I will keep you up. I expect to be healed. Because if not I can drink pots or scroll myself. You know things that lessen my DPS. No big. But what ever your doing don’t make excuses. Just say sorry and move on.

So last night in this shroud we get to part 4 and we go in round 1, fine. Fairly smooth. Round 2, we go in fight get out (did I say we were down to like 6 people by round 2?) as we were told to move around and avoid the fire balls and such. Some did others did not. Dodging round 2’s fireballs cost me some life and fighting the devils there just were no heals. I drank pots but I couldn’t scroll as I was told they would heal and I raged up. Dead. Wipe. One of the clrs complained he drank 8 pots and used his big trinket. Died with like 300 mana.

Reform and smooth again until part 4, round 2, we were ready to head in as harry just landed. I was at ½ life ask for a heal get it. I am the only one in at the time, and the clr informs me that I am the anchor again. I keep moving, staying away from the blades following me around like a lost dog. But I do have Harry’s complete attention. Fire shield wheres off. About the time he decides to go all meteor swarm/ fireball at me. There was a window I was at around 100 life I back up and drink a silver flame pot and he throws some more fireballs and boom.

I get told that I had 2 heals thrown at me but nothing. Look at my log the only healing I had from the first swing on Harry was my pot. The rest of the melee goes in a little after I die and I am told that one of the clrs is trying to aura heal and shield block. Okay…. And then that clr joins me in part 5. Luckily the group makes it to part 5. Think 4-5 people get to shrine.

Get to part 5 and get started and at about 100 hp I call out for a heals. Like any at all. At 50 hp I leave group and scroll/pot up. Taking the 2 bosses had agro of with me. In part chat one of the clrs inform us that they can’t hear us when we ask for healz. I say, no problem. I will pot/scroll my self you make up my dps while I do so. Someone else asks “If you can’t heal what can you do?“

Found it to be very funny and pissed me off at the same time. Asking Fopo to try scrolling me during the harry fight with his 10 fvs levels I will take his 95% chance vs the divines 100% shitty chance. Looking at the combat log later, I see that Fo and Tobril’s heals (on his bard) where my main healers. I did get some healing from the other guys but not as much as one would thing from mass heals.

Whatever.

I know when on my divines I like to do other things. And calling out for heals is a way to prompt me to hand some out. I am not going to watch others red bars in normal questing. I will throw a mass around me any time I notice that we/I need healed. But if you say something I try hit you asap!

Now in a raid I play a little more healbot. Why? Because I am a horrible healer. So I try extra hard I over heal drink pots left and right burn scrolls whatever it takes to not have a fail on my hands. I don’t want my rep to be shitty healer.

Guess I am not the norm.

❤

There is a lot of talk whether or not using the Invisibility to prevent mobs from attacking extractors in one of the new challenge quests is a cheat. Not going to use the other word, just because.

I don’t feel like it is myself. I was talking with old Tobril and Fopo about it last night while working on more IQ quests.

And Fo was very much yep thats a cheat; until I said one thing. In PnP DnD you can invis objects. That was all it took for him to turn around.

And then the topic shifted to how would we or our Dms handle such an issue. Or how could the DM use there tools to get around the players casting invis on the mining machines.

A key to understanding what options a mob would have at its disposable is to understand what the mob knows. So lets get a short list of what it might know.

!, where the extractor is, or normally sits. I mean these things sit on their island right?
2, for some reason they really don’t like the extractors running. To the point where when one is active your tribe/what ever sends out party after party to see why it is running and to shut the damn things off.
3, I would bet that being it is something they dislike so much they would have tried to remove them, but couldn’t so they must be heavy.

Okay that is a good list. Following that logic I try to put myself in to that mind set. I have just been told that the one of the extractors is running and to go handle it. I get to where the extractor is and it is gone. But it still is doing the thing that pisses me off. Maybe I can hear or smell it.

I forget all the different kinds of mobs that spawn, I only ran it like 2-3 times. But we have to allow that according to PnP some of the mobs don’t rely on sight as strongly as we do. Gnolls for example use their noses a lot. Earth Ellies or Mud men (I remember them attacking me once) might have tremor sense.

So an invised extractor might make them start to hunt around for it just as quickly as not.

In come quests the mob casters pass out buffs like Displacement and Deathward. Why couldn’t they pass out see invis or True seeing? The way those mob casters dispel in every quest now, like it is going out of style, tell me they wouldn’t dispel the hell out of that extractor.

So is invising a cheat? I don’t think so. Until mobs have the smarts to respond better to some of the player tactics I might put it in the cheesy pile.

❤

I want to share a story or two about me and UMD, Use Magic Device. Inspired by a post by wax_on_wax_off and an off comment by my lady love.

I have always use Umd in ddo. The very first Samius had his cross class Umd score maxed and that was just something I always did.

Back when the cap was littler and before there was Trs and greater hearts of wood there was little 28 point Samius. He now lives on Thelanis, well mostly sits on Thelanis just in case….

I remember a lucky Titan raid I ran will the little guy and a pair of seven fingered gloves dropped. I wanted them so badly, in fact they were the reason I ran the raid. Back then he wore armor 100% of the time. Mostly just to be a little different, hey it worked for me. 🙂

Anyway the gloves went up for roll and I won. I was thrilled. I made a comment about how happy I was to pull them for the SPF reduction and pulled off my head set and shared with my wife the good news. Only half paying attention at best I noticed someone was talking a lot and I started to get a few tells. Finally when I went back to the game I was getting bitched at. By a guy named doopelbock. Yep I still remember the name. He also wanted the gloves for the more important reason of HIS umd score. I remember trying to talk to him about how my own umb was quite serviceable and with my new gloves I had a fair shot at heal scrolls (50% or so). But he would have none of it. Before long I realized it was not the merit of my usage but that he wanted them and there for I should have given them to him. Dropped, reported any follow up contact and excluded him from any group I was in.

I told that story because last night the TR group was running some IQ elites. Stuff was hairy for a while. Tobril as the ROUGE (mawhahaha) ended up having to “tank” the damsel in side Jeets. Not enough healing for my barb to take 150 point fireballs, chain lightings, and big scorching rays. My 50 charge stone only lasted for about 20 seconds before running out. Our hireling clr died super quickly and our guildie clr not long after the hireling.

We raised them both, many times in fact. Hell I had a few rezs thrown my way also. But we ended up letting Tobril tank for a bit while I dumped heal scrolls into him. Fopo got all the agro he could and kited until he got all the trash and Tobril got stabilized. And I was able to go in to help with the final big dps push.

Good times. I don’t know if we would have wiped if I couldn’t umd on my barb. His standing umb has him 50-60% on heal scrolls, with a few swaps I am 100% on heal scrolls (including a pair of seven fingered gloves gloves and a HoGF). I mainly use my umd score for fire shield scrolls before raging up or fast travel, but it good to have for when shit hits the fan moments.

The wife watching from the sidelines (she wasn’t playing yet) made a comment about those gloves being worth the asschewing I took so long ago to get them. Thanks Doopelbock, live in a fire. 🙂

I ❤ you UMD.