Last night on Samius, I capped out first quest. But as the rest of the train is still a ways away from hitting that goal, I swapped to Samyus for the rest of the xp last night. Not that there was a ton left. After all it was a Epic Tuesday turned to xp runs for lack of guildies. But we can epic other nights once everyone is capped as long as TRing is turned off.

Back to the point…

I am still wavering as to what this life should count as on Samius. As 6/6/6 monk/ranger/fighter and already having the monk past life I have 2 real options. I have listed the passive and active feats before. But as they are easy filler here they come again. As always thanks to the Ddowiki.

Passive Past Life: Fighter – You were a Fighter in a past life. You occasionally find yourself filled with the urge to bark orders to your fellows in combat. Each time you acquire this feat you gain +1 to attack rolls and +1 to the DC’s of your tactical feats.

Passive Past Life: Ranger – You were a ranger in a past life. You occasionally find small animals in your backpack. Each time you acquire this feat you gain +2 damage with ranged weapons and +2 to elemental resistances.

Active Past Life: Student of the Sword(Fighter) – You recall more about your past life as a fighter. You have +2 to your Intimidate skill, +1 to the Maximum Dexterity Bonus of armor and shields, and can remember your martial prowess three times per rest, increasing your base attack bonus to your level and granting +4 to hit.

Active Past Life: Warrior of the Wild (Ranger) – You recall more about your past life as a ranger. You have +2 to your Spot skill and can produce a Barkskin effect three times per rest. (Activate this ranger ability to toughen the skin of an ally, giving a +2 natural armor bonus to AC with an additional +1 bonus for every 3 caster levels above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 at caster level 12th.)

Now both passive feats are good and helpful for my bowonk shell lives. But I am thinking that I will try a 11/9 rog/monk next life as I think I want to roll up something like that for all the time. So for the next life the fighter passive feat is slightly better.

The active feats are a different story. Student of the Sword is fine but I could carry a clickly of divine power if I need to make my bab better. I haven’t bothered to carry a clikly in a long time….But Warrior of the Wild on the other hand maybe super helpful assuming I can find room for it. If you have been reading for a while you know that I have been going AC while leveling up as long as possible for ease of leveling. And 60s maybe 70s is very do able with the bowonk shell. Although finding room for another past life feat will be tough….

I plan to take my levels soon so hit me with your thoughts..

❤

Last night there was much debate, both with the wife and with Fopo about what and when to pre order our Underdark Expansion. To skip to the end some the wife and I both ordered last night. But their was more debate that I want to cover.

To do the super Tp pack or Not, That was our question. Last month when the super sale happened we both found room in the budget to pick up points. And we feel good about that. Or I did (not so sure about her) until last night. Wow…. Kinda wish I had waited now. But even so I thought we should try to find room for the bonus Tp deal. My thought was that 11k Tp + what we have would be more then enough Tp to switch to Premium and remove a monthly (really every 3 month) bill.

Here is the clincher. The point my wife made that I had no logic to counter. She said “I don’t think I want to loose my VIP status, do you?”

Hmmm, No.

I like being VIP. I know that the the perks of being a VIP seam to be dwindling. But to me it is being the better consumer. Right now I feel by my remaining VIP I am saying this game is good enough and I enjoy it enough that I will “buy” it every month. My view of Premium players are this game is good enough I will buy this and that and at any time I don’t want to support the game with my check book I wont. Both are totally valid methods of paying. But VIP right now it the way for me.

I know I will I regret not getting this pack bundle I use my Tp on a whim, and it is a killer deal. Maybe I will see if there is a hack around after I get payed and see what I can do.

Lets shift topics some:

Why did I pre order last night? Tomes of learning. Cute little pets. And I was going to do it sooner or later might as well be sooner.

So who gets the big tome of learning? A question we all talked about last night. I picked Samius for two reasons. One I was piking some Dreaming Dark runs last night while I bought and set up the pre orders. I didn’t want to slow the people down that were moving my counter up. And I hear that there is an tome of learning upgrade that we can use to boost the other guys tomes. Samius only has 4 or 5 more lives he has to do. Java is currently on life 3 or 4. He can use the help as I assume I will take him completionist at some point.

Pets, I like them. I named the little wolf after my puppy Qywnn. Bought her the dance trick and a top hat and sparkle collar. And I am very happy. Now when I do my naked dancing waiting for the group/raid to fill I have someone to dance with. We noticed some status lag dealing with the pets last night. Tobril never saw her in her little top hat. I have to assume that as the pets are ran client side that the main server packet is fairly simple as to the status of the pet. I guess it is passing a Who and some Whats (wearing, doing if an action). We found if you did a gear swap it normally fixed the whats but not always. Also I couldn’t get the tricks to work from the quick bar. But Fopo had no issues. Hope to get that working tonight.

Meeting time. See you tomorrow.
❤

Saturday night, a call goes out for a hard Tod via the ByoH channel. Almost instantly the wife perks up and want’s t to go. She just booted up her Bowonk, and wants to try some other parts of the raid. She has a few ToDs under her belt as a healer. But that is about it.

We end up restarting as one of the healers ends up dieing in part one before we really get set up. Recall/DD. The last few people huddle together hoping that someone else will take the agro and they can get out. As I understand it there was one person kitting around the bosses saw Torrance recalling ran them over to her and then ported out. I only caught part of that as I was recalling out my self at the time and went to loading screen as the person kiting first heading towards her.

Have I told you all that she takes character death personalty? She does. And it makes her a better player. She is often the last one to die in a wipe. And often turns the fight around and prevents a wipe from happening. Phlor has a similar power. But his is more of the run away early and often variety. Better part of valor?

Anyway we wait for the 3 or 4 people that died to rebuff and get moving again. And part one goes smooth this time. Part two our kiter goes down at the very end. Oncler jumps out and intimidates and lives long enough for the group to finish up. The wife pulls the necklace for one of my rings and woot! Set bonus damage time. Aka good times.

Part three is where I ended up loosing it. We start, Sully shows up and knowing that the party takes sully off and kills her the wife goes in some. About that time the Sully “tank” starts crying foul. Because he can’t take Sully off her in the first 30 secs. Right away she discovers her error and turttles up waiting for the “tank” to do his job. Mean while he berates her and tells the healers to stop healing her. And she dies. And via text stands up for herself. Both Tobril and I do a little voice work. I want to point out that the “tank” lost agro many times. Where my poor monk ending up with the agro a few times. And we ended up with a few deaths before Sully went down.

Mean while some chatter went on, with Tobril defending Torrance as she followed instructions as she was given and they needed to shut up. I had lost it and had to be quite or vomit angry Samius over mic. Until we switched to Horroth when the chatter picked up again and I did go off a little. I don’t remember what I said but it was loud and full of words I try not to say. It shut everyone up until we finished the raid. For a group that wouldn’t shut up to go to pin drop quite I must have really unleashed. And I have the feeling that I made an angry impression as I don’t think any of those people ever heard me raise my voice before let alone thought I had such vile in me.

Watching my temper is something I have to do all the time. I can be quick to anger and once started it boils and boils. There were seven or eight people that didn’t deserve to hear my rant but they had to and to those people I am sorry. But I was not going let the blame fall on the wrong person for the cluster F%$& that was that last round. And I have a long memory when it comes to people that have pissed me off.

Well lets see if we can all get along from now on or if I am about to become one of those prima donnas that can’t play with some people. I hope we can all get along. I really do. But even as I write this I am becoming so angry that I just better stop before I rage on for you all.

❤

I have talked about tilt before. But if tilt is a new term for you I think of it as how bad play/mood encourages more bad play making the mood worse causing more bad play and onwards in a death spiral. Aka suckville. Last Wednesday, was one of those nights where I wish I was looking for tilt.

Looking back I have to say it started before I sat down at the computer. I was already not feeling well, and had a long day at work. But that is why I love Ddo, relaxation is only a few clicks away. Turns out the wife had hurt herself and was talking the night off to recover. So no major xp gains planed on the Trs.

No big, Fo and I wanted to try some challenges at the higher levels, mainly for xp. Looking over my list of ingredients, I need talismans to make a ring of the slayer at level 12. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. We end up doing really well netting 3 or 4 hundred ingredients, but it turns out we were in the wrong challenge. Grrr. We team up with Tobril, who wants to get some ingredients for items as well and we try the right challenge for the right ingredient. We do what I think was great. Until the power leveling hits for the ingredients, like 50. when 2 or 3 hundred would be about right.

We try moving on to some of the other quests on epic just to get a handle on their xp. Takes a little bit to get the wheels moving communication wise. Fo and I have been doing the challenges enough we have a pattern and a short hand that we use to keep things working smooth. Trying to add in a few more people can be frustrating for everyone. Take that and add Tobril being the only one that was handling more then 1 mob alone. Having to move in teams like wolves to protect and clear for our little miners. And team member a sees trouble on the left and member b sees trouble on the left and end up in trouble.

But I do think other then Devil Assault the epic challenges might be the quickest way to make tokens.

Then we move to ToD flagging. While Tobril was around to strap us to his back. Did I forget to say this was on elite. With out a divine? I died like 4 times. Three mobs were too much for me to handle alone. One on one I was fine. But with Tobril clearing the way and us pikers either working on side tunnels for chests or standing just far away that 4 or 5 mobs would port over at a time to kill us while Tobril handled the rest. It was tough. And when I said “Just leave me down.” I knew I was tilting hard. My play was sloppy and I was done. We wrapped that run up and I was out for the night.

Had I caught one of the earlier signs maybe I could have done something to make the night better for me. Instead I logged 3/4 angry at myself and read comics until bed.

I had to have been super good company that night. 🙂

Lates,
❤

I have no issues using the ddo store. In fact there are a number of items I am waiting to appear in the store that as far as I know are not even a twinkle in some marking exec eye, yet. But right now I want to talk about what might be coming.

I tend to error on the side of savings and buy points when they are on sale. Now I could make due with out buying any points but I have a little more disposable income that I can put to entertainment as most of my entertainment comes from Ddo and netflix.(Aka I stay home when ever possible.) And not as much time to play as I would like. So there is my trade off, a little cash for a little time saving and it happens to help get me content. Win Win.

I have noticed a bit of a trend. There is a big point sale then a week or two later good stuff either goes into the store or goes on sale. So I am wondering what will be the thing to buy this go around.

I just saw the pick your own discount. I often load up on Hearts of Wood and xp pots while there is one of these 30% off offers. Might get all my upcoming TR guys the pack space and the bank space…. Oh ad I need a name change or twooooo.

I want a few things returned before going nuts on my shopping list.

+5 hearts I want to take Samyus and make him my permanent bowonk. That will fit his original design goal well enough. But the best past life that I can get him for a life as a bowonk is not the wizard past life. At 10/6/1 right now with a level banked the best I can do with hearts in the store amt is take him to ranger school. Which is a fine feat and I might wish I had it but of the 3 classes I am right now Monk would be the biggest boon to the build.

+3 tomes, I know lots of people will have a cow when the +3s return. But with the upcoming retain tome through a TR change, I see their sales being better then ever. I know there are a few stats I would like to have a +3 in for Samius for the rest of his Trs, I had a few saved up but not a full set, Samyus has a full set of +1s and that is all.

There are one or two little things that quickly come to mind Humbug and Missle-toe are great. I ❤ Missle-toe so much I have a stack on Samius and a stack in the bank for then I run low. I would ❤ to have a stack on everyone that can’t wing around.

Of coarse there are more things here and there but as I am not a human ddo wiki, regardless of what Phlor thinks, so I better go.

❤

Last night epic Tuesday was back. The Team forms up for a epic Devils Assault and pugs a slot out to a much more dps driven War chanter bard. Not sure if he was just WC 2 I only saw him do the damage song and the DR song. Over all the run was very smooth. Tobril only killing 3 party members with his FvS healing and those were during boss fights, where those of us with sound followed normal protocols and cleaned up trash before moving on to the boss. Where our other no voice chat bard when right in on the boss and took agro vs letting the easier to heal better defensed Bowonk take it. Once she had it no one could take it away from her, and we where able to keep her up with baby heals.

We also zerged a quick Ebob. Which I guess was fairly good, as two scrolls dropped. Both to DG people that didn’t have that scroll. So win win. That is where Epic Tuesday ended and raid night began.

We swapped around and popped in to the waiting DQ 6 man and did a fast elite DQ. Moving my unloved Clr to run number 16. Guess I will have to get him to his disappointing 20th list in the next few weeks. Think I want to get him able to heal some of the 6 man epics….

Then Tobril offers ToD up for the next run. Sure why not, swap to SamiusJr for rings. I load up some Iron man comic I haven’t read yet via the Marvel digital reader (good as it has lots of books I haven’t read yet, bad as reading them on a phone or tablet doesn’t work right.)

Anyway, there happens to be a pug up already with 3 people and we decide to crash that group. The raid went super smooth. To the point where people wished we had done hard. But as that 3 or 4 rings dropped. I was more then happy. The Assassin ring when up for roll and I was the only one that rolled on it, win. Now I can add another burst effect and wait for my Shinto ring.

A swap again, and a Reaver goes up. Having not played my current character in a while I go in to lich form and forget to keep my aura running. Get low on health. Look for my Neg E burst. Find it. Cast it get hit and die. Quicken wasn’t on….. opps. Back to my Iron man comics. 🙂

It is about 9:30 I normally would have logged for the night long ago to watch something with the wife, but I am not feeling tired and decide to tag along for the shroud about to go up. I swap to my gimpy side project Samyus. He needs to cap out so I can TR him into a more worth wild build. Thinking my permanent Bowonk or Air Sorc. I need to decide soon because what he is going to be next will decide how to finish him out this life.

Surprisingly the run wasn’t too bad time wise, 26 mins. But we had captain super ass clown in the group so it was less pleasant then normal. But I did get a scale and I finished 3 books over the 3 raids.. Not a bad night all in all. Just not as epic as I normally hope.

❤

I think the reason you guys read these posts is the fact that I try to share my thought process, as well as my short comings along with my victories. Last night I gained the xp for 19. I don’t plan to take 19 any time soon but it does make me think about things I have been putting off.

What should this life count as? Currently Samius is 6/6/6 monk/ranger/fighter my Arcane Shintao Kensei Archer. I could go fighter or ranger. Fighter is full of good stuff, to hit and trip/stun dcs. Not that the ranger free past life feat is any worse, +2 ranged damage and two more to all resistances. But when it comes to the pay for past life feat the ranger life clearly wins. And that would be 2 more AC from level 12 on. Assuming that I can fit it in to my next build and AC will matter for it….?

Speaking of the next build and things I haven’t decided yet. What to do next? I think Fopo wants to do an arcane life next so I need to make a build that pairs up well with an arcane.

Also I think that Fo is worried that I will wrap up soon and leave him to level alone. Part of the reason he wants to get the lives he doesn’t want to solo done. However, Sam has 4ish more classes to level plus druid when it comes out and I also want to do two more FvS lives for the spell penetration but I want completionist before I worry a bout extra lives . I wonder were I would be at if I started TRing like Star did? Would I also have the super completionist title? I don’t think so.

Anyway, I want to try playing a rogue. But as I am thinking more of a permanent 18/2 rogue/fighter for epics or a 11/9 rog/monk for my TR life. Something to get the feel for the Rog some.

Maybe that 11/9 would be the way to be when teaming up with an Arcane. Assuming he will have the hate do to aoes or putting mobs into backstabbing mode via CC. All the while keeping the UMD up high for faster healing…

Lots to think about.
❤

Lets do a weekend review today. Starting with Reaver raid pugged.

Fopo was doing House C crafting ingredient runs. He was super focused on making some Bracers of Wind, once I showed him how to find a few more points of AC with some gear changes. So Torrance and I spent a lot of time saying “What do you want to do? I don’t know what do you want to do?” Before long she sees a Reaver Pug and jumps in. After a min I do the same.

For some reason every time I wonder why I have so much trouble soloing this thing any more. This raid with the Reaver at about 1/2, five(according to the wife) people where in the box. Way less then 7 people were being helpful. Including the raid leader/puzzle solver. So I pulled the lever, killed the reaver (not alone) and solved the puzzle. Got the shaft. But some one got a +3 tome and there was 1 or 2 seals and at least one or two other named lootz.

Flag for shroud, do shroud. Shroud is now Hard/Elite worthy. So we do Hard. Took us 3 tries over 2 days.

That first group was 2 sorcs, 3 Fvs, the 3 of us TR train people that were on. Can’t say I remember a ton about that first run until part 5 where melee could not keep Harry surrounded do to them just dropping due to the total lack of heals. Three FvS, had to hope one of them had mass heals??? People die, get rezed. Fight more. Harry was at a sliver. When I took to much damage that I couldn’t keep myself up with scrolls. All that was left was one Fvs. And he ran around healing himself. Finally got him to BB, thought he was going to save it. But he just couldn’t.

New day, new group. This group was way better then the other group. Part 4 was a long 1 rounder or a super short 2 rounder. Depending as to how you look at it. This time Part was a nightmare. Healing was alright, but not great. And we wiped with Harry at about a 1/3 to a 1/2 hp.

Grrr. Fine “normal for completion” I hate that line more then words can say. But we completed with mostly the same group.

Did the Reaver Refuge quests. Kobold was a nightmare. I am blaming scaling of a fourth person. Last life the 3 of us had no issues. But this time they were hitting that much harder. But all working together we found a way to win. Monastery we had to do the cake rez trick. Fo and I both tried for the switch. But the saves were too much. Torrance had the original learn to use the store cake handy. I need to go get mine before TRing again. Two runs to save the Dragon failed. Again we did all three Refuge quests last life on elite with no problems. We need to learn to work better with the bigger scaling and then some as I think Tobril is tagging along this next life….

The good thing is even though I was disappointed with the losses I didn’t feel like I was tilting. Think it was because I enjoy playing with these guys but not in a competitive way (Like I sometimes have with Tobril). Now if we can just complete some of these things regardless of scaling a hair smoother….

❤

Reign of Madness
The rings offered as end rewards now have a minimum level.
Lam Notes

I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Time to get grinding.

I have a +6 con ring bound to account with no minimum level. My wife has a GFL one also with no minimum level. I have a few other good rings on a bank character, a 125 Sp ring a long with one or two others, mainly Rouge skills. Remember, I always look at every item in my list for minimum levels. Sometimes you will be surprised. And when you TR as often as I do, twinking becomes half the fun.

Last night was a free night. Tobril is out of town, opening a new store. So I couldn’t make him lead a ToD for me.

Torrance was taking the night off after making me almond crusted chicken and banana pancakes, thanks le_goat. The pancakes were a little off. I have to find some caveman sirup, I guess. I am not a big anything on my pancakes guy but something is needed. Still I ate the hell out of them. 🙂

And Fo was out bowling. I am sure his blog will have scores and what not soon. 🙂

So I was alone for a while. Gave me some time to take my gimpy Samyus through the Reign of Madness pack. Had to do casual on some of them, but xp is xp. I made it through the pack with out to much trouble once i got past Acute Delirium. A quick look down the list gave me the option of a Fang of Siberys or a 25% striding ring of nothing +3. I took the ring.

Switched to Java and zerged the pack again, think he will be my madness farmer for the next week or so. Might have to pike my kids account along also! Got a Fang in the list again and lots of the upgrade collectables. There was also a +4 acid simy of PG level 8 took it as the games are rocking and how good would that be icy bursted at level 8?

I heard that U13 was due out on the 22 on the newest Ddocast. Or at least in the first 11 mins of it. I haven’t gotten to finish it yet. So you have 5 days to farm up your rings. I am looking for a False life of usefulness. Think fort can be the suffix on a ring. How uber would GFL of heavy fort be at level 0? heck I would take a FL of light fort and call it a win.

But how often do you get what you are looking for?

Skimming the Lam Notes….

The Ring of the Stalker’s Manslayer effect now works properly.
Lam Notes

Wonder how it was broken? Fo’s ring seems to vorp the mob whenever anyone on the server rolls a 20. 🙂 Hear Manslayer on some tears of the ring are broken. His is the level 12 version tear 3 added Feather Fall and lowered the level 2 making it level 11. It seams to work almost too well.

Monsters with rogue levels and the Sneak Attack ability now have the ability to reduce fortification to personal attacks to some degree. For example, a CR 10 bugbear assassin with 4 Sneak Attack dice will now be able to critically-hit someone with heavy fortification approximately 10% of the time. That same bugbear will be unable to critically hit a character with 110% fortification.
Lam Notes

Get your Fort up more or find some more Hps.

That is enough for now.

❤

Like almost every night I get asked what the plan is. And like every night I ask my wife (if she is playing) what she wants to do. Most nights it is level my TR. Or sometimes it is raids. Last night it was whatever.

Never a good sign.

So with xp on the brain, we knocked out the last 2 litany runs. Over all Litany chests were more helpful this life then normal. With 3 pages among 3 different people all from the same chest, it beats the normal totally skunked that I have been seeing the last 2 lives. Although a few lives back I got 2 Docents of Quicking. When I roll an Arty the dog will be uber!

After Litany, I look at the quest list. Acid Wit and Delirium are the only two level 15s I haven’t done. Miss remembering the other day which Harbinger of Madness quest was the final monster of a quest on Elite, I talked Micheal into bringing in his 20 so Phlor and I could do the quest on normal. So we could get the end reward for the chain. There are some good items in there.

Buff and Acid Wit it is as Delirium (Acute or not ) is one of the hardest quests to complete at level on elite. Acid Wit is doable if low xp for the time. The wife and I became separated as I followed mobs one way and see followed mobs the other way. A few seconds later I hear “I’m dead.” A quick look and she is still at 100 hp and I take off. But she is earth grabbed and too far away for me to save. 😦

That started the “Why are we doing this quest?” and “Where was my back up?” talk. Grrrr.

We complete and earn our 13k xp. Think I was the only one that didn’t die at some point.

I start looking at what is left. To get xp from in the level 15 quests. And there is not a lot when the wife talks about doing a Reaver.

A few things to keep in mind. I don’t like leading pugs. I was feeling ill. I try to keep everyone happy. And I have soloed the Reaver raid many many times. With all kinds of character types. I have exploded but not before pulling the lever that lowers the force field to the puzzle.

Well last night the four of us did. To start we got lots of ellies right away. The first 2 balls were both ellie spawns. Just as we get all the ellies down the other two corners are hit and spawn more. At this point Torrance gets tripped and again I can’t save her as I am in full on ranged mode across the room. One man down. We go up and down well everyone but Phlor who lands in the save spot and stayed there. The bravest of us all. 🙂

Fo and I are working on ellies and he drops to -2. I was not a far away from him and get a heal off just in time to go up again.

We are down to 5 or 6 ellies when we happen to get fly. And start the beat down again. After a few Torrance wants to know if anyone is coming to rez her? I send Fo as he can heal as well as I can but his lighting 2 should be a little less damage then my angry fists. He gets half way and realizes it will be a one way trip. I call him back.

A fresh fly and I go. I decide to get her stone and not pull the lever. It feels faster as I am running out of fly. Less then a min left. I move as fast as I can. Get right to the edge when I take 4 or 5 hits. I stop to heal. As I scroll my fly ends and I fall into the last batch of spikes. I am in the box. 10 secs later Tor pops in as her stone is still in my pack. She didn’t get a rez. But as she has started to not wear her head set she couldn’t ask for one.

Fo comes to get us. Making it to us but trapping him. I take his rez below, Tor gets mine and off I go, back to the beat down.

I get the reaver prepped and all I am waiting for is a fresh fly so to hit the kill switch and boom. The world explodes. I didn’t think the timer started until we got the kill switch? Oh well. If Tor didn’t die I know we would have won. If I hadn’t wasted time sending Fo and then recalling him we should have won. If I didn’t fail to get Tor back I think we would still have had a good shot.

But this one I know for sure, if the clock started when the kill switch is pulled we would have won no doubt.

Well live and learn. Maybe tonight.

❤