You can break characters into a few main groups.

Main, often the most played character. But is the one you most identify with, in my case I am Samius. He is my main.

Alts, the second tear of characters. You play them as much as you feel like. Sometimes more then your main but normally not. They are often built to allow you to do something your main can not or to play when you feel like something other then playing your main. JavaBot would be my main alt.

Role fillers, Alts you roll and level up to fill perceived holes in your alt options. I have 3 divines for “healing”, Butters is my Epic runner while Sam is on the TR train, etc.

And Bank/trash Alts. These are often experiments or Alts that have fallen from grace. Samyus (some one I will talk about later) was heavily played until TRing became an option and then Samius became a full on focus. These alts can often be salvaged but can be a challenge to recover.

Why to I bring this up? Three reasions, Phlor, Stiner and Samyus.

Phlor: Now back from dead, he was a main only kinda of guy. Mostly do to his dislike for leveling. He loves raiding, it is the part of any game he <3s the most. But he also wants to make his main as uber as he can. Aka some past lives are needed.

Stiner: Trying to cap out his first ever character. He has lots of Alts capped including his main, but he has set the goal of capping his first character ever.

Samyus: Lets say is he also someone I want to cap out so I can TR him in to a missing role. I will add some of the copy I wrote about him yesterday but ended up not using at the bottom if you want see how far he has fallen.

Here we have three different reasons to have and cap an alt. Phlor needs a raiding/epic capable alt for when the mood strikes him or to be part of the guild raid-epic nights. Stiner wants to get that feeling of completion from caping his first alt. And I want an old fav to have new life and get soom play time again.

As promised a little about Samyus. Samyus, is an alt I really loved back when the cap was lower. I built him with a full set of +1 tomes if that helps you get an idea as to how old he was. I was super pleased to get a full set for him. Now a set of +2 are fairly common for most of my guys. And some are close to a set of +3s. The idea was x/2 wiz/ranger melee/ranged focused and rock the auto crit enabling spells for good trash clean up.

Any way, after a few +3 lesser hearts, he is now 10wiz, 6 ranger, 1monk. And he uses a gs rapier 3xearth and 3x air light pick. He was the first guy to get GS of any kind. And back when we could auto crit with holds or earth grasp he was my nasty melee wizard. Now he is really lacking. When I put that last lesser into him I planed to do 12/6/2 and use lich form and stay melee. With the additional forms and lich moving to 18, he has been left unplayed at 17 for a very long time.

Alright that is enough for today.

❤

I want to share with you the story of my first love.

I was in 7th grade and in strings class, remember I play the cello. There were not a lot of us so they would bus the high school kids to the middle school fairly often as to let us play with a bigger group.

And I got to know some of the high school kids. Two guys stand out, stick with me. I swear this is not the story of any man on man action, Terry and Drew. They were junior and a freshman at the time and my poor little brain was thrilled that I could hang with the older kids.

So after a few weeks we had a concert. I say concert because we had more then just family members show. Afterwords while we were packing up, Terry asks if I wanted to try a game. Of course I was game, any time I could rock out with the older kids I was game.

They took me to their friends house where 3 or 4 other people where sitting around, drinking Mountain Dew and playing Magic the Gathering. Before long I was lost in the details of what was going on.

I had dice loaned to me, one of the DM’s jobs is to have group dice, a rule I still carry around with me. A “simple” character made for me. A rogue Kyrterion, (a home brew cat-man). I spent the night sitting around a table with strangers that I now miss and think of fondly often. I can’t even remember all their names. Even though I spent every available night playing Dnd with them. All while they made my little cat mans live miserable for the night. Throwing him down hall ways and into pits to “scout for monsters” More like using me for bait!

Later that night I had to go. But the games then went late into the night and I ended up running 2 miles to my mothers house at 12:30 to get home by my 1:00 curfew. My mother might mock of my nerdy-ness now, but she was very supportive back then and allowed me to stay out as long as I wanted as long as I was with Terry or Drew playing DnD.

I was in love right away. DnD gave me the freedom that I was missing in my home life back then. I lived with my father and my step-bitch(who made my live hell, not step kid hell, child abuse some day I will see here head on a stick in my front yard hell) But all that didn’t matter as long as on the weekends I could go to my mother’s and spend the nights playing DnD and the days watching my brothers do what ever sporting events where in season. My grades improved, if they slipped it was an excuse to ground me away from my mothers house as well as all my chores and whatnot’s around the house.

At some point that first group broke up, people went of to collage or off to get their “real” jobs. My mother had to move for work. Tobril and I started playing. And I became the DM. I got a job at Wendy’s and worked my schedule out to include gaming 2 or more nights a week. And it was a few more years until any thing challenged my love for my game, until I met a girl that later became my wife. And now we spend our nights playing Ddo. I couldn’t be much happier. Both of my loves at my finger tips.

❤

Saturday night the Tr train leveled to 17. Almost right away I started to hit up Oncler in channel to drag me through elite Hox and Vod. But I didn’t get any replies. 😦

After a quick gear check (nope still nothing at level 17) and a few people saying they were leaving or taking a long afk I looked at the Lfm panel.

What do I see? Oncler, has an elite Hox Up. WTF?

So I shoot him a tell “Room for three?” I see that there are like 4 or 5 people in the group already, so I assume we are good. But after a min or two I get no reply. And 2 more slots fill.

Well hell. Drop and apply. Get in and first thing ask for 2 more slots. But there is only one slot left. The wife hits the LFM and gets in. Oncler and I chat for a min and he boots a guy that has been Dced for 5-10 mins and says “He can bitch at me, if he ever logs back on!” And invites Fopo. And we are off.

We have the H method planed, and I was looking forward to trying out my Dps in the next tear of quests. Remember, just leveled to 17. I get assigned to the west and Fopo and Torrance the right. But I guess when the guys run this on hard everyone collapses into the center and ride it out with 4 stones using 2 or 3 dogs. And an arcane kites the outside alone using Flesh to Stone on the beholders.

But elite Big Mama has too many Hps for 4 stones and by the time we got back out to look for more things were a mess. On the plus side other then a early fluke death where no one was able to help me kill a protector that made it into the middle until after I died. I was the next to last to die, and that was to a Mama over run while orange alert.

Rebuff and I insist on staying outside to keep the alert down and we win in no time. There was a funny point when Fopo and I where the only two on one side, he was real low and I go to heal him just as a doomball Tenser’s me. And he has to kit around until he heals up and I kill the baddie. The Chain Shirt drops for me, but it is no help. But it goes to the wife who passes it off also.

eVod goes smoother then the Hox at least until the end push when both divines die. 1/2 the melee die once there is no mass healing but Torrance and I live along with enough people to finish Sully off. Again no worth wild loot, but 66K+ xp and kept the streak alive.

So wins aver all.
❤

So I have been on this Caveman diet. Mostly meat and veggies. No grains, legumes or a small list of other items. For the most part it is vary easy. I can sit my cravings aside and be good.

Also I have lost 23 pounds in the last 2 or 3 weeks and more importantly my migraines have backed down some. There is still a throb like a sore muscle or something but the 24/7electric fire that I decided would never go away with out lots and lots of pain killers is a lot more manageable. Now I just have the flare ups to manage.

So anyway, the wife and I decided we would cheat a little for Vday and go eat at this little dinner we like. I have been trying to make something like pancakes for awhile now using Almond flour, eggs, and coconut milk. But they aren’t right. I can take that batter and pour it into a muffin tin and make a brisket like thing. But it tastes very Almondly. Which is good. But not what I am looking for. But I will keep at it.

So we hit this dinner and I order some pancakes, she behaves slightly better then I and gets a hamburger and fries (aka her kryptonite).

As soon as I dig into the pancakes they taste “wrong”. I am not sure if the month and a half of eating better as reprogrammed my taste buds some or not. But were not what I wanted as soon as I had the first bite.

But I ate more. And as I went on, I knew I just didn’t want them. So at one and a half pancakes in a short stack of 3 I pushed them aside. I felt heavy and bloated. But hungry. But I had the nasty taste in my mouth and couldn’t eat the eggs even.

So we went home, both the wife and I regretting going out. And it hits me what I have been graving potato-pancakes or Mac and Cheese. But cheating on both grains and cheese would be too much.

So anyway maybe next month when I want to cheat again I will remember this and stop myself. Or at least find something worth cheating with.

On Thursdays I twist Tobril’s arm and make him lead me through Tod at least one for Butterz. Mainly to spend some time doing end game stuff. Ideally, we would do a ToD then LoB and MA. Well last night we did two ToDs and an Abbott. It worked out I guess.

So I swap from Samiusjr to Butterz. I have been taking the slow 30mins or so to ransack Raiding the Giant’s Vault with Jr to farm some plat and renown. It keeps my account in the black while TRing Samius non-stop.

So swap, Boat up and head to the quest, a healer short of full and ready to go. There is some talk about as we have Ac tanks the two bards in the group could scroll the tank and the lone divine could stay with the party. But alas Butterz was on timer for 16 hours. Oops!

I forgot, Oncler did a hard a few days ago and I tagged along.

After a quick chat with Tobril I swap to Java. So I could heal and he would lead on Holy and I could bring Jr for that run.

Group 1:
I am not sure what happened, the raid was full of good peeps. But part one was kinda F’ed up. I needed up moving to the party once the other healer and 3 or so good melees died. Leaving Tobril to tank the Jailer by pot healing. He was fine. Don’t think that it was all impressive. Tobril didn’t get the him killed before we stabilized and killed the Judge. If he did then we all would be impressed.

Part 2 was going fine until the kiter died. I got a BB down and was winging out, when Tobril yelled out to spam heals. I took a hit as poor Java is not fast. Wing and then 5 secs of sloooooooow. And wing again. Many people died, including me as the Devil went down. But a win is a win right?

Part 3, well the group woke up and it was super smooth. Tobril passed me a trophy for healing. And there was 4 or 5 rings drop. Not super ones. And Java has his rings just can’t seem to find the right belt. If I did more then 1 ToD with him a month it might help.

Group 2:
We had a lot of hold overs, which is cool. But we also picked up a few people. Not English speaking people, not an issue until loot drops.

Part 1 and 2 go smooth. Tobril kites on his WF FVS I need to ask him about his striding item. Maybe I will get an Abbott seal and fix Java’s quiver next.

Any way part 3 is also super smooth until it is loot time. One of the Asian guys pulls a Telvi’s Touch and another guy pulls a Oremi’s Ring. There might have been others but these are the issue.

In chat the owner of the Telvi’s Touch asks if any one wants it. Or I assume that is what linking it meant. No dice were ever given, but I want to say I saw someone say they did. Mean while the owner of the Oremi’s wants to give his away over voice. 2 or 3 people say I do, plus myself. And I also type in chat that I would like to roll on it, if it was up. No one else seems to want it. But he doesn’t seem to hear me. A little bit later, he asks again offering it to one of Miss’s monk. He says no, and says to pass it to me. I say that would be great and type something to that effect in case he doesn’t understand/ or hear me. Some how this guy thinks that there is another Oremi’s in the chest and again is looking for someone that might want his.

Mean while back to the Telvi’s. Its owner links it again. That is all, just links it. The only sorc in the group says he wants it via chat.

About that time Miss is fed up and tells people how the rings should go. I should get the Oremi’s and the sorc (ice) should get the Telvi’s. I shorted and cleaned it up for you all. But that was what he said in a nut shell. While I would like the ring I by no means require it. Its owner just seemed to want to give it to anyone but me. Which was weird to me, but I let it go.

After Miss was done the Sorc informed him that he as air, and not water. And Miss said that he took it all back and asked why he was trying to help. Which the the Oremi’s owner meant that I didn’t want said ring. And began to ask again for any takers. I just typed that I would like the ring and left it as that.

I think someone must have sent him a tell as out of the blue it got passed to me, about a min after that. I thanked him and left.

I don’t know who, if anyone got that Telvi’s. 10Mins standing around a chest and talking is too much for me. All I know is people started recalling and dropping so I figured that someone would take if sometime.

Crazy! So anyway thanks to some very good people Jr has one of his dream rings. Think he might get played a little more often as some of his key gear is coming together. Just need to get a plan together. Thankfully Tobril has a good gear layout for a halfing monk I can follow more or less. 🙂

❤

So I have been looking at making a few changes for the rest of my TR lives thanks mainly to some new gear that has come out aka Ring of the Stalker.

For those living under a rock the Ring of the Stalker, is a Cannith Challeng item and has many levels and tears in side those levels. I would say check out the DdoWiki: http://ddowiki.com/page/Ring_of_the_Stalker if you want to read more about the Ring then I am going to share.

I am going to look at the level 12 ring as it is the one I might make a ton of changes to my build to account for.

Lvl 12 T1: Exceptional Sneak Attack +1, Seeker +3, Manslayer
Lvl 12 T2: Exceptional Sneak Attack +1, Seeker +4, Manslayer
Lvl 12 T3: Exceptional Sneak Attack +1, Seeker +4, Manslayer, Craftable +3 (Bound to Char)

Manslayer: Your melee (with weapons not Unharmed or handwraps) and ranged attacks with throwing weapons against Humanoid targets gain the Vorpal effect or Drow, Dwarf, Elf, Gnoll, Goblinoid, Bugbear, Hobgoblin, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Human, Reptilian, Kobold and Troglodyte. Aka most mobs you will encounter from level 12 until level 17-18. Until most mobs become devils or when in heavy undead content.

So how does that ring lead to GS? Well Wraps wont work with it. And the idea of a vorpal 3xPOS Kama(Short sword??) say Holy, Good Burst, 30% amp and a say a vorpal 3xPOS AMP, Pos burst, HA 4 Kama(Short sword??) seems fairy good.

I don’t really think I am going to do this. But I might. Dual welding +5 vorpal/Greater Disruptors boosting my level 12 amp to 200% plus and takes the Ac up another 2 over the cloak I spent a lot of time making… The only real downside is taking my hit damage from 2d6 to 1d8, and not being able to use the Vamp stonedust wraps 100%. 😦

With the upcoming GS deconstruction at least some of the mats will be returned, so it will be like paying X ingredients to temporally use some Kamas for TRing… For five and a half lives to completionist and 2 more after that?

It is something to think about.
❤

I guess I am not the only one that wants to try to do a little improvement in my life. My cave man diet is doing well btw. And so far the wife is sticking to her quest to quit drinking Pepsi and changing her diet to help her feel a little better. Did I tell you all about the Berkey? Maybe I will save talking about it until the end.

Anyway, Tobril is also on the betterment bandwagon. Monday I got a weird tweet from him to me “I need a bit of help, if you (Samius) can commit to 2 mins a day for the next 90 days”

Hmm, sure?

He called yesterday, and explained what he is doing, well enough anyway. Now I am going to try to explain it to you and ask for your help also.

The long and short is he wants to devote an hour a day to study. 50 mins for reading/doing and 10 mins doing a fast blog/writing about what he just spent the last hour doing. In a tap it while it is hot. So to have a second experience to help with recall.

But here is the deal, Tobril has focus waves. He will become super focused on something for a few weeks to a month/s. But never really more then 3 or 4 months at a time. Ddo is the only thing I have ever known him to keep is intensity at a high for an extended time. And even then he as waxed and waned as we all have.

Just a few of the things I have seen him focus on over the years, his car, Magic, the “Girl”, Ninja classes, playing the G-tar, biking and a ton more. All of these things have had their day and have fallen to the normal level of attention. Tobril is the only one I know that 30 days of doing something doesn’t form a habit. A rare gift in deed!

So to keep him on task he has written me a check and put it in the mail. A check that I have been asked to cash if he fails to keep up with the pace he has chosen of five blog updates a week. I guess I am the stick to the carrot of self improvement. And I am a pointy, electric burning stick.

At first I was joking around but thinking that he would send 20$ or something. As to quote him “I find the idea of giving you money disgusting!” But checking out his blog @ tobril.com/blog/ the check is written with an amount that makes me want to half root for him to fail. 🙂

So this is what I would like from you all. If you like programing and related topics, please check out his blog. Help keep him on task, because my own greedy nature will kick in soon and I will try to get him to fail like no other. That is some phat loot right there! Think of all the emergency items I could buy with that cash.

Quick Berkey blurb:
The Berkey is a gravity feed water filtration system. Think of it as two 5 gallon buckets. But they look like those water jugs that most water fountains with the filtered water use. Any way the top “bucket” has 4 holes for up to four water filters. I only have 2 atm. These water filters are the main part of the system they are reusable just needing a good cleaning every so many gallons like around 3000. One of the nice things is you can buy extra filters and add them to speed up the your water putrefaction time. They also have another level of filtration that you can get (I did) that removes the fluoride and arsenic from the water. Aka poisons that every city in the US adds to the water.

The long and short is my wife will drink the water from the Berkey but she wouldn’t drink from the sink. She hated using the sink water to cook with and now we don’t have to. Since it is gravity feed and has a built in reserve tank a few days with out power or water is not a huge deal. Also I can gather almost any water and the Berkey will clean it out. So if the shit hits I could hit the local stream and still have clean good tasting water where others are using fuel to boil the water for safety and it might still taste/smell nasty.

Yesterday I talked about keeping up my AC or switching back to the more normal leveling gear layout for me of Hp/amp/guards/ dr. I got some lower votes and some good feed back. So last night when I logged on I did some content in my HP/Amp/Guard gear and some in my Ac gear.

HP/Amp/Guard:
Swapping in to a con 6 ring, and a Greater False Life item netted me more then 75hp. Plus I remembered to slot a guild item with hp putting me at a hair under 500 hp. My amp is missing something as my 1 were still 1s but my 2s were 3s and my 5s were 7s so I am some place in the 150% to 199% amp range. Lowering my AC to 45.

We went out to the vale, just to net some easy to get xp while the rest of the group formed up. And I have to say it was like any other time in the vale. I got hit a lot and took lots of damage. But I was able to keep myself at more then 300 hp off nothing more then my incoming healing and light finishers. Had the bad lag that ended up killing the client while there was 4 spiders on me. But the time I had relogged in there was only one left, guards/ auto attack had killed the other 3 and I was still in the 300s.

And while this is normal for me balancing incoming healing vs incoming damage so I am not worried about doing the dance. Is it the best way?

Everyone finished eating, hang up the phone, got out of the restroom long enough for us to do Madstone.

AC:
For Madstone (elite) I went back to AC, I kept all my not Ac gear in my pack encase 64 Ac was not helpful. But I had the feeling that it would be.

I went ahead and shielded up to clear the main field. The lowest I got Hp wise, was 350 or so. I was almost always full. My incoming healing more or less the rare hits and any glancing blows I may have taken. And the one time I noticed that I was down I was able to light finisher and fill back up completely.

Crucible (elite) was the same way. Other then the swim (where I did switch to hp mode just in case) I learned a 7+32 did not evade but silver flame pots made quick work of the damage and the swims we no problem. Yes I went back for the bracers chest. No I did not get any still.

For now I am going to stay AC. I am not going to lower my dps to stay AC like I could. But as long as it is working I will keep. Right now the loss of Hp is totally countered by having an effective AC.

Something for you neigh sayers to remember, I am not talking about a 64 AC at the end game being effective. I am talking about at level elites and one level above hards while leveling back up so I can TR again. That is all.

However, I am working on an end game Ac tank so look forward to that build sometime.

❤

Right now my AC is beholder resistant 59. Add in a shield wand I can boost it a bit more. And if I wanted to use Bark skin pots I could go higher with an unlocked HoGF and a few more with some AC bracers vs my Jidz. But that is about my cap. 4 or so more points, on my own. Short of totally changing my play style (which I could do) I don’t see a way to really move my AC up any more with the gear I have.

Keeping my Ac that high is costing me some good things.

Like a lot of HP. Right now I have about 370 hp. That is with out a Con or GFL item. So I am missing out on 75 hp, just because there is not room. Wearing my Icy means I am not using my amp/amp/guard DT robe. Wearing my DT would boost my amp to 200% Making Vamp strikes that would have healed for 1 heal for 2 points, 2 in to 4 and 3 into 6 per hit. Jerky would tick for 4 and the Jungle Cloak/Ham 10 points.

Hp and incoming “trickle healing” are not the only items missing. Before taking level 16 I have been using the lvl 12 Brawling Gloves so I have been down 2 possible Strength. I am 90% sure I have a full tear 3 level 16 pair to max my strength out again but the last few levels have been harder then necessary when it comes to stats. With so many slots used for AC items I don’t have room for basic stat items in every slot making it dangerous to use silver flame pots for big healing when needed.

Let alone swaps for umd gear.

So what do you think? Back to hp, amp and guards? Or do I stick it out through elite Gh and Abbott flagging quests? Do I mix some things up and net some more AC, at the cost of some dps? Do I make another Cannith crafted trinket, this time for Superior Devotion / +4 attack bonus? Maybe take the time when the Cove returns to make a AC hat for next life?

Comments go in the comment place.

❤

Over the last few days/weeks many of the older guard of the Defense Guild as returned. Micheal, Phlor, Evan, Tim to name a few.

Well last night in a Tod, Tobril and I where making gay jokes and whatnot. Generally trying to pump up the group with a little humor. I think that a group that can relax and have a good time can/will handle almost anything and win. And humor is normally a great way to get everyone on the same page and relaxed.

Any way as Tobril and I are joking, one of the raiders says “Is that Samius?” Which I reply not at the moment. Or something like that. Tobril says ”I payed that guy five dollars to ask you that, to make you feel good about yourself.” Which I thought was funny as hell at the time.

And tell began to fly. As the person begins to explain that we we in a guild together before the server merge. I let him know I have only been a member of DG. Which is not 100% true now that I think of it. I have alts in the Build Guild which I never play on…. We bounce around some more tells and he says his kid also plays and I would call him KY.

Mertan and Gor-baby!

Back when the DG first started we were a lot more open to guild invites. We weren’t worried about the Guild’s reputation then. Before guild renown, when we played with someone 2 or 3 days and we thought they were good players and they worked with the team well they were offered a guild invite.

This is how Crisis came to DG, as well as a lot of others.

Mertan, was (maybe is) a guild butterfly. Like Lessah I guess. He was part of the DG and the Halfling Commandos for sure and I think a few more. And is an alt-olic. And as his interests went from one thing to another he played his DG alts less and less. To the point where they were bank mules. At that point we had decided to do a culling. Everyone that hadn’t longed on in so many weeks got cut . Those people got a guild re-invite letter and an explanation in the mail and if they had an email on the guild web site a mailing also went out.

Mertan/Gorbadd were lost to us.

Well I guess he was just on other alts on in other guilds. It was good to run with him again. Got got up some on the families goings ons.

Now if Crisis or the Cousins log on, then it really will be a return of the dead.

❤