Monthly Archives: August 2012

Topic Three, Holy Tree Hugger Batman

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Today is one of those days where I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head and I am not real sure what to settle on and turn into a full on post. So I am going to try and do a few smaller posts. I also have a few (not sure how many but more then 2) winter wolf codes to give away. If you want a code leave a comment on the topic and let me know you want a code.

Topic Three, Holy Tree Hugger Batman

I have had the sudden realization that if the xp keeps moving at the same pace or even picks up with Tobril and the wife (almost ready to tag along), I will need a new build real soon. But with my new found love of the druid, I don’t think am done playing what might become one of my favorite classes just yet. And I have be wondering if 9 levels of druid is as good as 9 levels of monk to carry a build through a life……

Nine levels of druid gives us winter wolf form and 2 level 5 spells, so Cold Breath and WoF. Some fairly good Healing at the lower levels Vigor proper and lesser mass if you want to mass heal some… Fom and Sleet storm. And two of my most used Spells Ice Storm and Call Lighting. Oh and lets you take a real sleeper enchantment “Reaving Roar“. Trust me kids you will be hearing about this one again from the “build masters” later.

Wait there is a free AoE that happens when you kill a guy and it is sonic damage? Hmmmmm.

So what can we do with the other 11 levels of which at least 10 should be pally just to make life easy?

Well an Arty level gives some SP, rouge skills and a lot of Xbos feats. I don’t have any xbows on Samius. So a rouge level would be better over all. Maybe take that rouge level at 10 and dump all the points in to umd… something to think about…. That is when all the Chr skill items are about to kick in.

While we are looking at 1 level splashes we should look at Wiz and Fighter for the feat. Which may or may not be needed on whether or not you want to take a pally PRE. The only one I think would be worth it by the time you get it would be Knight of killing out siders, and doesn’t have an feat prereqs. So I don’t think I/we need to splash for feats.

Will pally levels be a help to the druid?

Your not going to get a ton of SP or any access to any really uber spells for that matter. Sure smites and lay on hands might help with the now huge pressure on your kind of small Sp pool, but I don’t think they will be enough help.

Over all I think if I will keep playing with this build because who doesn’t want to play a tree hugging holy batman? I just think it will have to go less Spell focused and more melee focused. And until the shape change melee stuff is all cleaned up I don’t see a great melee only druid in the cards just yet.

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Topic one, Skipping level 12.

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Today is one of those days where I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head and I am not real sure what to settle on and turn into a full on post. So I am going to try and do a few smaller posts. I also have a few (not sure how many but more then 2) winter wolf codes to give away. If you want a code leave a comment on the topic and let me know you want a code.

Topic one, Skipping level 12.

There are quest levels that need help. Level 12 is one such area. Not there aren’t plenty of level 12 quests but if your like me you want to keep your streak running at max and you want to spam the good quests on hard after you break the ice on elite. Meaning that at level 12 your running level 10 quests.

You have some Threnal quests a few Titian quests and a lone sand quest at level 10. Aka not worth the time to solo when going xp per min. And this life I am doing really well keeping on track. I TRed on the 24th aka 7 days ago and last night I took level 13. I am on the faster track this life. Which brings me to my second topic so look for the next post to see what that is.

Anyway I think (and I talked to Glin and Jerry about this a few times at the Con) that if Turbine could just take Threnal make them all level 10 quests and tweaked the xp just a little I could see that area really take off. You might need to do a little bit of an item pass for the end rewards but I think they are fine and if they put in a upgrade alter like they did with the Abbot and Reaver raid loot I think things would be great.

So I leveled after breaking the ice on the one level 10 Sands walkup. And starting tonight (unless there is a MtG draft or pnp game happening) I will be hitting up the desert proper.

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Topic two, Druid Naysayers are Wrong.

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Today is one of those days where I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head and I am not real sure what to settle on and turn into a full on post. So I am going to try and do a few smaller posts. I also have a few (not sure how many but more then 2) winter wolf codes to give away. If you want a code leave a comment on the topic and let me know you want a code.

Topic two, Druid Naysayers are Wrong.

This life even playing mostly alone or dragging a full on piker around has been super quick and easy. And I think that is because the druid class is so strong.

Sure there are some buggy issues. Like I am not 100% sure that power attack is working in animal form or whether or not the feats/gear whatnots that help monk unarmed damage are worth anything for a druid or not. I would so take the monk past life feat and work in the vestments of more fist dps if I knew things were working. But I don’t think things are right. But even so wolf/winter wolf forms are the nuts. I already talked up some of the lower level attack spells but cold breath is crazy good, almost no timer on a cone of cold? Yes please! And last night I took Jaws of winter. It is amazing even while soloing with a little bluff skill, I can’t wait to see it when I finally get to team up with Tobril who will be in total blaster mode on his sorc.

I feel the druid class is currently so strong I am really debating on switching from wizard to druid as my “final” completest build. I toyed around with the idea of going Arty but the lack of instakill in the arty spell list makes it a no go for me. But hell druids have Finger so some instakill. Even if it wont be as good as a PM’s. But they get better healing and can fill as many different roles as a good bard or arty. But I think they can do better then those other classes.

I am sure Java will be TRing to Druid once I finish up my Pally life while I debate what my “final” build will be. But druid is a real contender.

A like how the druid plays so much it takes me to my third topic.

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Is it Okay to have a Mistress?

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I think everyone knows I love my wife more then words, even though she hits me. Send help. ☺ But have you seen the Xp in Shadow Crypt? Totally massive! I just want to motor boat her massive xp! At level 11 I just want to crawl up in side her and try to make sweet babies of with this quest.

Last night due to staying late at work on a project and then a stop at the store to pick up food stuffs and then eating said food stuffs left me with about 2 hours of game time with my not so secrete love.

I even went ahead and bought my lovely quest some XP pots from the store. First time run on Elite with my streak fully loaded gave me 43k+ optionals in xp for about 18 mins of work. Total satisfaction……

Thanks to some thinking ahead I was able to pull my alt account threw a few elites before I errored and didn’t catch the window.

I might have openly wept. I had plans to bring that alt account threw a few times and only once I had had my way with eShadow would I allow the alt account to wonder over to and pick up the quest so we could double team her on Hard walking down the good times to casual.

Thanks to rolling around with pure wonderment/joy I have when finishing with eShadow I let Fumblebot run out the door closely followed by Samius and I to late I caught my frack up. So Fumblebot got on chapter and started opening. Once burned; I made sure to have Fumble recall out before starting the end fight which still netted him 5-6k a run for standing at the door and throwing a few walls of fire.

The last run it was getting close to bed time and I was in a rush to get to bed before the wife and dogs take over the bed completely. I started to rush. Not stopping to gather any extra gears. I am sorry I missed the signs Shadow. As I ran for the final hallway I noticed that I could have gotten a 3rd of every color. But I was on a mission. The door to the final path was in yellow water aka west I swim threw and start auto running while swaping to Fumble and get him recalling and out of no wear Samius comes running into the starting room. I ran out the east room.

So stupid.

I start making the run again from the start, this time I noticed I ran pass 3 out of the 4 rooms that I hadn’t looted yet and had I looted the last room I ran through on my last trip to yellow water I would have a set of 3rd gears…..
Even with my mistakes I was able to make 6-7 runs in two hours. And the final run netted me the last xp I needed to take level 12 when I am ready. But I am not done running with Shadow. She and I have to make a dent into level 12 before I try my hand at killing maruts and beholders in von3 and robots in von4.

I am sure my wife thinks there is another woman on the nights I run Shadow Crypt but really there is just a special quest in the hole I call my heart.

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Missing Items

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Over the last year to 18 months I have done more then a few TRs and it seems like every few lives I realize that something has gone missing. When I catch something missing I have no idea when I had it last or if there is anything else that has vanished. But the result is the same, the item is gone and I am confused wither or not there is anything I can do about getting these items back short of farming the raid. I did say all the ones I know that have gone missing have been raid items right?

The first time I noticed something missing was back when I did my Bard or Barb life. I had just turned level 12 and I was wearing shitty armor and I remembered that I had a set of Marilith Chain and Demon Scale from the DQ. I couldn’t remember which armor was the “good” for dps but I had them both. Before I started TRing I had taken all my active raid timers to a 20th list and I was passed the bad set in the chest and taken the “good” set in the end reward list. Thinking well if I am going to TR a whole bunch having armor would be the worst idea.

Of course I was missing the Marilith Chain when I went looking. Ended up using the Demon Scale for a few levels until switching to a Chain Shirt of Crippling and that went out for one of my many sets of Dragon Touched armor. But now that I think about it I don’t have the Demon Scale or the Chain Shirt of Crippling any more. Don’t think I would have sold them. But after I got fairly high in the Cannith crafting system I stopped using them so they might have gotten lost in the Armor wars. But I know that the Marilith Chain was stolen from me.

Long time readers might remember that durning my Sorc life I took a few weeks off grinding the xp to take a few raids to 20s again and to farm Epic von6 for shield parts, which I totally got by the way. But as I ran eV6 about 10 times for the shard for my shield I was passed lots of other base items just in case. Some I used others got added to the bank and doubles got sold. One such double item that I know I sold one of and kept the other was the Ruby Encrusted Gauntlets. I remember thinking that I could foresee making a set of gloves epic at some point the boost to fire spells and epic slots in gloves, but that was a long shot as I have 7 fingered gloves and like UMD.

But I had two pairs. I know that I had at least one set during my Arty life as I tried using the non epic version for its clickly thinking that if anyone can make this clickly worth wild it would be an Arty. It wasn’t by the way. But that was only a few months back.

Jump to last night when for some reason I thought that they might have some kind of combustion value and allow me one less weapon swap in combat and my glove slot happens to be empty now that I am no longer using the Vulkoor’s Might set. And no joy in the bank, which I guess is okay as taking a look at the ddowiki today, the level 9 version does not have any combustion.

So have you noticed any thing gone missing on TR? Like me does everything that goes missing seem to be raid items or is that just a trick of the mind and non-raid/named items go missing from time to time but I just don’t notice?

<3s

Flame Throwing Winter Wolf

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I said yesterday that I would explain how I play my druid and I think the title sums it up nicely but I will elaborate some.

I have a Merc Stealth keyboard:
Merc Stealth

As you can see it has a wonderful video game section that allows me to play ddo much better then I could before. But like all layouts there are keys that are easier then others to hit. For me the “quick keys” that I find easiest are 1-4 and 7-9.

I bring it up because I think that showing what spells align with which keys shows the order of importance.

So my quick keys are:
1 Takedown, Quick back of the hand DC for its trip effect is 24ish which works on most mobs. Might need to find a vertigo item and boost it more. By far the most used spell/special attack.

2 Baiting Bite, this is my kill guy attack. If I need something dead now I hope this guy is of timer. So far max damage I have seen from this attack was 389, yes I rolled a crit but as the wolf forms are 19-20 they are not bad. But I am level 9.

3 Call Lighting, on monks this is where I put stunning fist. This is the easiest of the number keys to hit and I hope starts to show how even though I am melee a lot of the time I am just as spell caster as ever.

4 WoF. Every caster I have has their main AOE spell on the 4 key. It is just kinda my thing. Having this spell here just makes things easy for me. And you haven’t lived until you stunned or tripped a burnable monster in your main AOE.

5 Ice Storm, I want to have to reach for this key some, I don’t want to put of my WoFs because of a slight error. On monk lives I use this key for my finisher.

6 Flame strike, It is a little slow but as it does fair damage some of which is good damage I like to have it around. More then once this life I run to red skull WoF and then used Flame strike on top of wall to clear the agro. But it is over out of the way.

7, the second easiest quick button for me to hit. It is currently Panacea but once I have another 5th level spell slot it will become Cold Breath I think.

8 I think is currently Spike Growth. I like to have a CC spell here and for a while Snare or Entangle took the slot but I wanted more AEO damage for some of the gather mobs kill kill kill fests that I am currently running for xps.
9 Vigor, I just want to say I really like this spell. And I can’t wait to play with more of the regen spells. But they are not extendable? Come on Turbine, WTF?

10/0 is always Cure pots. That is another for every alt thing. But I almost aways reach across with my mouse had to hit the other 10/0 key

So to me that kind shows the melee and caster nature of the druid but incase it is not clear to others my current style is pull until I get slowed or I need to kill for a quest adjective. And then AOE and more often then not stand and trip and or eat people.

I guess weapons might also help make a clear picture but as they are about to change tonight (I will be leveling up) I think they can wait until the level up dust settles.

BtW I know I say this about every class, but I really like the Druid and I am really thinking about making Javabot one full time now.

<3s

So I am a dog….

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Friday I took the day off work for some brain scans. Turns out that my sister in law was running the CT that day so we were able to catch up some. Big plus side, she saw that there was a brain in my head so no more brain less jokes. ☺

Before the scans I took Sam and powered thru the last 6k I needed to cap out for my fighter life. I am so tired of punching everything to death. I need a caster life real bad, hence my excitement to start my druid life.

After much thinking, less so then other more complicated builds, this is what I have decided to do. I went Dwarf thinking HP and SP lines wouldn’t suck. A larger con with an easy self-healer would be ok, as well as having the boosts to tactical skills. Hey I just did a fighter life remember? My Dcs should be fairly good for tripping and stunning even with out a +10 item thanks to some APs. And nothing burns like a tripped bitch in a WoF!

My leveling plan is druid until I feel like I need another feat/ after getting WoF with monk being the most likely splash. I think all the monk-unarmed stuff works while in animal form. Maybe I should make a Vet 2 guy and try a few monk levels just to be sure. Can you Vet with a druid now?

Anyhow Friday afternoon I hit up the TR tree and became a druid. Let the XP zerg begin. My goal is to catch up to Tobril who is powering up right now and is about 10 levels ahead of me.

Level one was about the same as every other level one. Take whatever two hander I could find on the AH for 100 plat or less and clean out the first few island quests until hitting level 2.

At two find BtA Holy of Icy burst great axe on one of the 3 possible bank alts but while leveling up I got to pick a shape sifting form…. Well from what I have read bear is more dps and even though I am tired of melee 24/7 the first few levels are always a melee-fest. But using my brain for a min I look at my spell list for the “form” spells. And the wolf form Takedown is worlds better then Maul (the bear form 1st level spell). And you know all those extra tactical boosts might help with that Trip DC, right?

” Takedown – This attack deals an extra 2[W] damage, and you may trip the target, rendering it prone. Some creatures may be immune to this effect. A successful Balance check negates this effect. (DC 11 + WIS mod. Any effects that improve the DC for the Trip feat also improve Takedown.)”

So I take wolf form. With a little reading of my enchantments I see Blood Moon Frenzy, aka kill a guy and run faster. Moving faster means less time in quest and more xp/min.

Levels 3 and 4 are fast and thankfully my pile of uber handwraps are going to be a real help as your weapon type doesn’t seem to effect your animal forms attacks any, super nice. 5 and 6 aren’t too bad as I get in with other speed leveler and he can open STk pt3 and Bloody Crypt. 11 runs of the former at a min or two a run equals big xps and a little slower but still good runs of the latter takes care of the rest of the easy levels. 7 and 8 are a little slower as now it is Saturday and I need to do some non-ddo stuff. But firing up the kids account reflags me for bloody which I do a few hards totally skipped Proof, which is fast/good xp for me most of the time.

I try bear form for a little bit but it is just too slow after so much time as a wolf and Baiting Bite is so much stronger then the bear’s Shred attack. 4[w] vs 3[w] and opening people to sneak attack vs a sunder? Don’t get me wrong it looks like Tremor might make bear form better but that is a few levels away. But looking more at the list looks like the pack spells start to give more amp…. Hm more amp is more better…. So wolf might stay the clear winner.

So logging last night a little away from level 10, I really love level 9. There is just a great amount of quest at level 7 to really power up with. Like I said above I am doing the winter wolf form now at least until I get 6th level spells to try out Tremor. I have tempted to take some monk levels. 1 level would allow me to take stunning fist and having a “fighting” level will open up trip on its own. A second level will allow me to get into earth stance which I think would boost the unarmed damage if I was using a Jidz, add in the past live monk feat and I could have both good dps and good spell casting. Starting to sound a little too good. Good DPS, selfhealing and spell casting?

More on how I am playing, as it is totally different then my only guide, aka the wife, is playing hers.

❤

Is that time again

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With less then 200k until I TR Samius again it is time to start thinking about builds and what is left for him…

Double-checking Samius’ my.ddo page it looks like I have everything but Druid and Pally left to play out before opening up completionist. Then I have different questions to answer for myself… But for now the questions is Druid or Pally?

The other day before Gencon I was feeling burnt out on melee lives. Or maybe I was/am just tired of the different bowonk shells. Don’t get me wrong the bowonk is super strong and is covering all the bases in the HP/DPS/healing/ Xp per Min piles but how many lives in a row can I play with is more or less the same class? Again it is stupid strong to the point where I was auto attacking end quest boss fights last night and watching Sherlock on Netflix (btw it is really great! I ❤ the BBC most of the time even if they killed Coupling)

Leveling the pally will be the fastest on one of the Bowonk shells I am liking the 9/1 monk/arty shell in everyway (other then being burned out on the melee style) so it will have to wait until after a caster focused Druid.

So lets look at the Druid because I haven’t really looked at it all that much. The wife has one she is soloing with atm and she loves it.

So a quick look at the druid class and it looks good. Mostly shape changed focused with a sub focus on the pet. Uses the ¾ Bab, d8 hp and has Fort/Wis as good saves over all it is a tree hugging Clr.

And what do we know about Clrs? It is all about the DC and spell list, ie Clrs have the 2 best spells in DDo. Okay really the best 3 spells: BB, Destruction, and Heal.

Druids get Wall of Fire (lvl 9 ie just in time for Shadow Crypt and other Necro quests) , Finder of Death at level 15 just in time for Giant Hold. Looks like heal is also level 8 spell so level 15 but they also get Panacea and a ton of Regen like spells is ample self healing and catch all healing.

The question becomes do I splash a rouge level and/or 1 or 2 monk level or 2 monk levels or not?

I think getting to WoF is super important and their spell list handles most umd scrolls easy enough but they are missing some like teleport.

Anyway I think I will try out a pure druid unless hand wraps work while in animal form in which case I might have to add a few levels of monk after level 9 earth stance dire bear with a max Wis, stunning fist/stonedust wraps and a jidx/and a past life monk feat? Sounds sexy to me….
I foresee more reading on druid/monks for me.

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Did You Stand Around and Wait for Me?

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Yes folks, I am back from Gen Con. I seem to have made it back in one piece and I am back working hard at work; or is that hardly working and writing a my.ddo post for you all…..

I could talk about Gencon but if you go to ddococktailhour.com you can hear about the first few days of the con. If you do you will get to hear from a lot of other people besides just me. Aka worth it.

So to day I want to talk about something I feel is strange raiding for xp.

With the addition of the epic levels it is super hard to find a raid group on Sarlona that is raiding for xp. It seems to me that everyone is letting 21+ people even if it is 10 guys at level 20 and lower there is almost always at lest one level 21+ guy in the group.

Well last night I thought I might have gotten lucky. There was a pug forming a shroud raid that really only had 19s and lower in the group. With 7 people already in the group I jumped in thinking that I would get a nice tasty boost this life after all. Before epic levels I could count on 200k xp from raiding fairly easily.

I was guy number 8 or 9 by the time I was allowed in and I hit the boat super fast and made my way to the raid. There is all of one guy standing around out side of the quest. And lots of talk about making it X fair this time and reforming and what not… But no one on voice but me it seems.

Before long I notice health and SP bars dropping and I discover that the group is IP. Maybe I missed something while porting?

I asked and they are doing part one over and over until they fill. From the party chat I think that they are having issues…. And this is their 4th or 5th run and they have gotten the chests some of the runs…

Go up to 10. The guys in side start to recall post-winning part 1 and looting. Once out the leader again via the text box says that they will do part one again since they are still not full and disbands the group and starts a new Lfm.

Hmm, pass. I return to the dreaming dark chain and proceed to net a 1k+ a min for an hour or so before making a run to the store. I take a look at the lfm panel and guess who is still hunting for people to fill his Shroud raid…Yep same guy.

I understand not wanting to stand around a waste time while a raid fills. But expecting others to stand around and wait for you may not be the best plan either….

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Another Weekend Report

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Note: My vacation starts in 90 mins, but as I am going to GenCon there may or may not be posts. I will be tweeting and using Google+ for things. So if you want to keep up and or watch CtH live look for me (Samius Gurobo) on G+.

Okay on to the run down of the weekend.

I get home Firday night logging on I learn that one @Tobril is “ill” and has been playing DDo all day. Funny I should have been ill too with 35% xp bonus. Once I get on we destroy Litany and then together we start the Shroud flagging quests. Good times were had.

Saturday I get on and solo elite Coal Chamber because it is a hell of a lot easier with out people “getting lost” at the top and scaling the dungeon. Not that @tobril does that, unless you read this blog then he might. ☺

Wrap up Coal, takes about 63 mins man I am slow sometimes…. Log and take a bike ride as it is a nice 80 out side and I want to hit the farmers market on the way home and get some fresh meat. Get on about 2 hours later post ride/lunch and wham look who crawled out of bed for more xp? Mr. Tobril.

Together we rock the rest of the Vale quests on elite. Running with the devils was an extra hard beats. I guess that spell damage is being super amped by mobs as if laser guns weren’t bad enough before. I was taking 100+ hits and Tobril and I wipe in the first fight, holy cow. We restart and destroy the quest. Didn’t hurt that I passed him 10 Sp pots and told him to drink as needed on his WF arty. After I remembered my Abbot robes, although 100-20 is still way to damn much for trash mobs to spam!

12 pots and 4 deaths later we finish up. Sure is was painful but hey I understand that very few people are about to complete Devils right now so I will take the win. Oh also I hear with scaling full groups are taking 200+ per laser hit. WTF mate? Is all I get to say about that…

With about 30 mins left before a dinner party Tobril says hey can we knock out any diff Coal real fast just to flag this guy as if he will ever run shroud. Team A did the quest, while team B (tobril) cleared the top for the extra chest. He wrapped up about the same time I hit the first open able door. And the wife and I start talking about dinner, Tobril and I are talking about the quest, Happen to scale the quest to red skull and don’t quite hit where I need to stand to clear the room while red skulled and take a death due to being just plan dumb. But I happen to have a res cake and pop up and take care of business meeting Tobril at the lowest door just as he arrives. Together we burn threw the quest with a 21 min completion time.

Sunday I solo some hard/normal Enter the Kolbolds and the vale quest again on Hard/normal dragging my other account threw the latter for flagging and almost capping out that accounts first alt. Will finish things out in IQ hunting for the rune arm for sure.

I logged last night at 18.4 and 3/4 s or almost to 19 I think with the Shavraith and IQ quests I can do finish out after Gen Con fairly smoothly. IF I am really smooth I will be about to cap out and then catch up with the rest of the guild that are running a TR pass but I think that might be a little much for me alone but what else can I do but try?

Peace out kids. I look forward to seeing those of you that are going to Gencon at the con. And the rest I will try to post some while I am away, but do that twitter and G+ thing too; okay?

❤