Last night it was just Tobril and I. Phlor was on but he was raiding his little heart out, Fopo was bowling and the wife was “not napping” no matter what it looked like. So in other words no huge xp jumps for the TR train. 😦

But on the plus side, Tobril and I did get an EDA (Epic Devils Assault). He got on his namesake main and I switched to Butterz. After a while of asking around Tobril lets me know we don’t have a CC guy….

Butterz’s Dcs are way low and her Sp bar is just a little bluer then a level 20 fighter. But I do have Samiusbot. He is a first life robot now PM (did the Ench specialized AM before the hold nerf). No green steel, no torc, I don’t even think he has a normal SP item. He does have a 42 int, and some good pieces of loot here and there but he has never been the “big guy” on my to work on list. He gets pulled out to do some epics where I can burn my Sp on wails and Fingers and whatnot. You know scroll farming runs. 🙂

Looking at my spell list I do have dancing ball preped, all right! I do need to do some swapping for mind fog but in hindsight I pulled mind fog because it didn’t work on epic mobs. Wonder if I was blowing a lot of extra SP on a spell that wasn’t working…. Hope the group thought I was casting solid fog now. 🙂

Any way I was rusty as all get out. In fact I kept calling Samiusbot “old rusty balls”. As I didn’t know what spells I had or where they were at on the bars. But to my surprise I didn’t have any issues dancing or wailing really. In fact we only had one issue, and that was during the last wave. After resting I turned off some metas to buff. Yes I know there are quick settings I can use but I haven’t played with them yet so I use the toggle on toggle offs that sit on my bar. But I guess I forgot to turn quicken back on or it did that look done so I move but it really wasn’t done so it didn’t take. I don’t know for sure what happened. But I thought I had my quicken running.

All I know is the clr dropped, party confusion spiked! I took a ton of damage from some casters out side of the disco ball’s range. I cast a neg burst to heal and it didn’t work so I hit the recon spell thinking that I must not have gone into form but that didn’t work either. And before I could recover I took a fire ball to the back hard and died.

I thought there was some confusion before. At some point it was Tobril and one other guy. I got a rez. Healed toggled on quicken and got CC back up. Didn’t think I could cast that fast as a wiz. The bard started CC ing also at the portals, some times he/she got some things. Everyone helped and we all recovered nicely.

Guess I am saying if I am saying anything is with some team work and a little prep work, even first life gimps can get things done.

❤

Last night Fopo and I on our off Train TR Alts decided to get a little xp. Looking at the list we both needed Last Stand.

I popped over to the Clr vending machine and got a fresh level 11 guy so I wouldn’t have to try and use tasty hams to stay healed up as well as throw the occasional heal or mass on the drow.

Things went sure well until the third round when the clr decided to stand on top of the guy that can’t die or else we fail. Hence forth I will call him Bob, the guy that can’t die not the clr. Clr took about 3 lighting bolts with out time to help himself out and died. I jumped over intimidated the group and pulled them away from Bob and drank pots and whatnot. I was left with 30 ish Hp and no pots when Fopo to regained control. Bob was at a sliver, and as I was trying to make my way to the shrine with my clr (never used it before so did KNOW where it was) the final boss spawned and while Fopo was able to keep the final boss off Bob. All the little zombies didn’t have any issues one shotting Bob. Fail

We try again, this time with Fopo in charge of the clr. About the same results except out of pots I died during the third round, after the clr and right before Bob. Fail.

Starting to get a little pissed at this point, but we mixed it up a hair. And I took on more of a true tanking role during the attack waves. Any time I was off intimidate timer I jumped over to Bob and got back on timer and pulled of any mobs around. Fopo was better able to control the clr and watch out for Bob while clearing trash that way. And I was able to negate most of the damage coming in via spamming ele pro pots, night shield scrolls, and using cleave and great cleave with my vamp sword while surrounded to more or less heal myself.

I hadn’t felt so good not killing mobs in a long time.

❤

I feel compelled to talk about a little movie news. There is a new Ninja Turtles movie on the way. Hurray! I love the turtles. I grew up with the cartoons and the movies. And I liked them all. They did go down in quality until The newest movie “TNMT” but I still loved all the turtle movies. Yes even Turles in Time.

Now there are a few controversial stories floating around with the new movie starting with the title change, Ninja Turtles. Right now we are loosing the Teenage Mutant parts of the title.

I don’t mind loosing the Teenage part of the title. At least two cartoons runs and four movies I am good with them growing up a little. And to be honest I think of them more as Mutant Turtles or Ninja Turtles.

My issues with some of the news stories is that Bay might be making them Aliens. Come on. I know that “rebooting” the title is all the rage right now. But do we really need a reboot on the Turtles? And why does “rebooting” have to start with the origin story? Lets say a reboot always has to include the origin story why do people feel like they have to play with it? Isn’t there a point where you play with the origin to the point where your no longer talking about the same character?

Lets play with some famous Origin stories and you tell me if they are the same character.

The Wayne’s don’t get shot and killed. Do we still have Batman? What if they drove home that night and got in a car crash due to daddy Wayne having one two many cocktails while they were out? Would batman be all about stopping drinking and driving?

Uncle Ben doesn’t die? Tony Stark sends an employee over seas to do the work and looses an employee in an attack. Super man lands in Communist Russia and is raised by the state?

Origin stories matter. Now if Bay wants to make a movie about fighting toads from outer space I would be all over it. He can even use the Battle Toads platform and I will be all over it. But you have to stay true to the core source material.

If you look at the comic book movies that didn’t do well they are the ones that broke away from the source material. Ie the first Hulk and the first Punisher movies come to mind. The second FF movie and while Spider man 3 did okay it moved away from the source a lot and did way less then the first two. And while it was not a Comic movie per say, but the Last air bender movie was based on the best cartoon in the last 10 years. But got away from the source and sucked hard core.

Anyway lets hope Internet out cry is enough to keep Bay true to the Turtles.

❤

I guess I have not been totally clear. In part because of the resent changes to xp and possible bonuses to xp. And because my old clear head phones died. And now I have to use my throat mic. Which I like, btw, but can be unclear. As my new “diet” works out I hope to get a little better fit and clean up the audio enough to be clearer with out having to repeat everything 2 or more times.

So in a nut shell this is how I plan to level. I will open up the quest log. Find all the quests possible at my level -2, and then decide if those quests are worth doing. Things like Titan pre quests and last X number of mins are a normally a no. Chains that have pain in the ass bits, but over all are good xp wise or loot wise make the list. And if the wife or another group member wants to do something then it makes the list.

No repeats, unless the quest is great xp per min, super fun or has killer loots. Like say Shadow Cypt, Litany of the Dead or Enter the Kobold.

I also like to have a clear area to hit. Say the walk ups in the sands. Like last night. I was not feeling super chatty, in fact I was tired as balls. Just wanting to hang out. 🙂 Do a little work on my Fighter but mostly hang out. But the team came together so I swapped to Samius. Tobril said he was on his way to do Maraud the Mines up so we all tagged along.

Oh here is a side point. Unless Soloing or working with someone that is able/wanting to do the invis thing I tend to clear to the end. If the team is strong like say my TR team, I like to spread out and nab all the xp possible in the shortest amount of time. Like in Tear, we broke into 3 teams. A, worked on the main quest, B went to do the optional that they could, C did the same as B. Which netted us all more xp. Areas of Assault on Splinterskull are the exception not the rule.

We (those that joined Tobril) started to split up. There were 3 teams again. I went one way to clean up optional, Tobril went for the end, everyone else other optionals. In just a few mins Tobril finished the quest. Wam. Bam. Think we netted a few 100s in optionals before the quest finished. No real point in clearing after that…

So we moved on to Purge the Fallen Shrine. Also a fast run but behind us. Then Raid the Vulkoorim, and then An Offering of Blood.

I don’t want to think about the time wasted on the order we did those quests in. Maybe if I wasn’t feeling so lazy I would have got my guys moving in an time effective way. Such as:

Purge the Fallen Shrine
(Maybe the The Chamber of Kourush, and The Chamber of Rahmat if we didn’t all solo them for ease)
Maraud the Mines
An Offering of Blood
Raid the Vulkoorim

That would have been a big circle, with no huge areas of back tracking. Thankfully to everyone we made good time in the quests so time lost out side the quests were not horrible. But we finished Offering of Blood with 30 secs left on my XP shrine…

❤ me long time.

As some of you know I did some work on my gear before TRing this last time. Mainly to take advantage of Ring of the Stalker and boost my AC up a hair more.

I have to say it is working out well. My Amp at level 12/13 is good enough that jerky ticks for 4, the jungle cloak for 10, and lesser Vamp for 2. BTW how I am getting lesser vamp into my weapon set atm is thanks to a Vampiric Fury Shortsword. Not something I use all the time, but I do use it often enough to be happy that it has a slot in my inventory.

Having the different kamas for head cutting time is real good. I mean come on who doesn’t want a weapon set like this at level 12: +5 vorp holy, good burst, greater disrupt and +5 vorp acid, acid burst, earth grap?

So over all I am super pleased with the set up. At 12/13 I have a 60ish AC. More if I can remember to use a shield scroll the damage is not much worse then wraps a d8 vs 2d6 But my normal wraps at this level are vamp stone dusts so having the other effects like Holy and Acid bursts makes up for a little smaller base damage.

I found a trick if you want to use your fists there for keeping your Tod and Stunning Fist open and yet add that Vorpal effect from the ring. Dual wield something, have your ring on use a scroll (ie scroll and kama) and notice that once you have a scroll in hand your fisting again. Notice that heads fall off as you can’t get swapped back to the other weapon set do to lag. Sure you loose having weapon effects in your hand at least until ToD rings but having your stunning and Touch back might be good enough? And you get to keep that off hand weapon equipped also. So in my case Amp or Ac as needed.

Talk about a bad paper cut. Now I just need a way to staple guys to the ground…..

❤

For the last few week I have had an idea bouncing around. And I hate to pick on Phlor, but as he is the inspiration for these thoughts, well screw him, he is going to get a little good heart-ed fun poked his way.

When last I was able to really play the TR train was around level 11. There is the core Fo, Tor, and myself. And the extras Tobril and Phlor. Phlor is leveling up some alts while he wraps up some raid completions and gets someone up to bring along when people want to raid or epic.

The thing is Phlor feels squishy. And he kinda right to feel that, as he is a first life (I have to assume 32 point) Paly with limited gear and twinking gear. Add in some issues with being rusty from lack of play, and trying to play other games on the side as well.

That said the man has a fair pool of people to help with that as well as a lot of his gear that is twinkable is quite good. And with a little work I don’t think he will have any issue with play rust.

But some how I keep catching him in the back of the party with his shield out and a thrower in his hand. WTF? Your a melee class, with melee gear the Wizard casts web and gets in there melee you had damn well be in there too.

So I have been thinking about a Halfling Thrower Build. Here is the rough rough rough idea.

Monk 12/fighter X/ Pally/Rog/Ranger 0-2

Goals: 10kS, GTWF aka Fists/bad touch (may involve earth stance + jidx), Imp Precise Shot, Weapon Specialization, and if needed go extreme aka Kensei 1 (Star)

The nice thing about this build is with a lesser (or a few feat changes) it can be swapped in to a good end game build. No matter how uber you make throwing star damage it is just not going to be good end game damage compared to a good set of wraps and ToD. But it would be a “fun” build.

I tell Phlor if he wants to play a back of the group dps/variable build to roll up one of my Bowonks. Even first life they are solid. But the idea of making a star throwing build amuses me. 🙂

More on this build as it develops.

❤

Today I am trying to do a post from the cell phone. Have to say it is not as easy as I would like. But lets hope I can find the gold for you.

In pnp I am a dice nut. I carry two bags of dice. Mine and group dice. And the two piles shall not cross. Ever!

Sure a dice might get promoted into my personal use bag or down graded into the other bag.

I know dice have power. Having my dice makes my play bolder and often allows the boldness to carry my play to higher levels.

What does that have to do with DDO?

All my dice are set to pink. The manlinest of all the colors. Why? Superstition. I feel that I roll better while my pink dice.

Sure I know on my head that there is not really a difference in the numbers given by the roller based on dice color. But in my heart there totally is. And for me pink is the best.

What color is your dice? And if you could would you have different colors for different rolls? I would find a good umd dice if I could.

Well not too bad doing it on the phone. Editing is a pain so no edits for you.

❤

or

So yersterday i ran down just a few of the many hurdles to over come when trying to play from the road. Today i want to share a story that will hopefully make you want to try and play some even if your on the road.

So i got on around 6-630 here. My wife was letting a show tape so she was able to also get on and play some, and as it was Tuesday night so Tobril was able to group with us. Adding alittle normalicy to ones life, while away from home is a good thing. But the real meat comes from what our group was able to go and do.
Samyus, my Ac tank in progress (who mostly soloed to level 10, sans healerbot btw) was elected to be “fixed up” aka made playable from the road. That means moving bars around. Takeing some off the screen. Even loosing quick access to some hot keys.

Once your muscle memory is tuned to go to a given place and do an action. Say Intim (number 7 for me), which on my normal key board is right above the “w” key just on the second row of number keys; reaching across the board to hit the 7 above the “y” key is not normal. Loseing my two side mouse buttons for target next hostal/object took a while to adapt to. In truth, I still can’t use the “tab” key to target anything.

Anyway, we all teamed up and did Shadow cypt like 9 times on elite. I ended up with about 160K xp for the night. Would have the same thing happened if i was at home? Sure but all that xp would be on Samius. Not Samyus. And Samius with the aid of my son’s account can solo said content a few times with out bothering any guildies (not that i will have to, but he could). Samyus could also but it would be a much more intense strugle, as he is not as good at killing ghosts while staying healed up.

Samyus was able to gain a whole level plus a rank or two in just a few hours. Keeping pace with the wife’s first life sorc and not far behind Tobril’s second life wizard. Leaving him able to be used to play catch up for others when Samius power levels up a few levels. I hope to do crush some XP this weekend.

All i have to say is playing from the road is extreamly challenging, but can be super rewarding if you can over come hurdles to play.

❤

I don’t have my normal text editor so i am guessing this will be a short one, but i wanted to try and post even while away from home. As some of you know i am in Denver, CO for Drupal Con. Wish i could say i have learned a lot and that i had the come to Jesus moment with Drupal but i haven’t. Not yet at least.

But this is a DDo blog so let me say traveling and playing can suck if you are not used to playing on a laptop. And i am not. At home i have two screens the smallest is 22″. So going to a 17″ laptop screen is fairly hard. To make everything fit i have to move things alot. I normally play with 10-13 bars on the screen. With my dice and health in places that i can see them as well as what is going on. That is just where my eyes look for them. Well they are gone. So watching my health is an issue.

I also have a gaming key board one with a special section of the board with the wasd keys where they make sense as arrow keys and surrounded by the number keys and other common quick keys. Trying to play with a “normal” laptop key board is a challenge now that i am used to my other key board.

But at least i am able to log on and do some playing, i am a huge DDo addict. I play at least 30 mins a day. Most days an hour or two is normal. So not having to go cold turkey is hard.

Any way i was able to help the wife do Von 1 elite with my fighter. I am afraid that Samius has too many buttons to hit to be helpful while i am gone. So the much easier fighter is the current call.

As for epic night?? I don’t think i would be super helpful. But i am willing to try some 🙂

Wish me luck, both in game and here at the con. Oh and traveling home wouldn’t be a bad time for some good vibrations.

❤

I will be traveling on Monday and I can’t promise a post so I am posting one for Monday today.

Nyxianne had a good my.ddo post today Link. And I am going to address the some of these issues from my point of view. It gives me a post and room for a longer comment.

Note: Any use of the word you s below are not meant at you personalty but people in my group.

This is how I play. If you want something you take care of it your own self or you will ask. Not type h in the chat for a haste, manors cost nothing and only take a sec. I will not use my Sp on people that don’t ask. If you don’t have a mic you can type Gh, rage, etc… plz in the party chat but I am not a mind reader.

If you take off then you have everything you need. I haste on me when I need it. You can watch your buff bar well enough to type “h” two seconds after is wears out, you can damn well find me a few secs before hand. Your welcome to say something like on my way back for a haste or whatnot before it expires and I will wait for you. Communication is a good thing, try it.

Now why is that when all through the lower levels you got buffs with no issues or questions?

I expect them to know what buffs they need once they start to get a few levels on them. Starting as low as level 4 now people can have permanent blur from an item. Do you? I don’t know. If you don’t ask for one I assume yes. If not then we are both asses, me for assuming you do and you for not asking me for that buff. Same for any possible Ship buffs (although I can see those if I examined you).

Also I can’t speak for others but a large amount of my time is played with a small group of people. We all know how each other play and what areas we cover each other. Being a smaller group also makes us not want to be a drag on each other. So often we cover our own buffs and heals so no one else needs to. It can be tough on the odd man out that is not used to how we play. I am thinking about Phlor and how he is handling adapting as to how we play with his long ddo break taking him out of practice.

Speaking of being out of practice; right now Tobril has to be feeling the pain of the TR train doing our own thing. He wants to be that haste-buff-CC caster this life, but we are off as soon as we zone in to a quest. Last night he and I joked about how he was going to haste me even if he had to start drinking pots to cast it on me.

On the flip side there are a few buffs that get thrown with no issues, Okay Mass DW/Pro/SR and …. Oh as I said above hastes on me. That is about it. Other wise chime up.

Now if you ask, not demand. I have no issues buffing you. But you should always work on becoming more self reliant.

❤