Monthly Archives: September 2012

Side Project, Darth Samius is ON!

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Something I have been thinking about for a long time is how to make an anti Samius for my Darth Samius build as well as something I can do in my spare time while waiting for Tobril’s Real life to settle so we can xp things together for a spell.

And then yesterday I saw Ambitious’ blog post How to Ungimp Yourself, watching his video I became inspired to make a full on huge hitter dps build. I have a few guys that hit simi hard. But normally I am more about consistently then the one big swing, unless I am on a caster then that is a different story. So I don’t really have a huge hitter on that level.

So lets change that. To do so I will need your help. With build ideas and tweaks to the one I come up with.

The base, I have an level 13 – xp for 14 first life barb that I will cap out in my spare time while Tobril’s work keeps him from our planed TR time. I swear things were easier with Fopo, he didn’t have a real life that got in the way of my game time 3-4 days a week. Even though he is married with two kids. Hope his ddo break is almost over.

A Barb past life will be a boon to any alt and a name change will set him right up.

Other then that I have nothing set in stone. No build ideas or a real list of must haves although after playing with the barb as is; not WF might make the list. I have little to no gear yet for this guy. But I will flag for shroud and gather a few sets of shards for GS crafting post TR. Unless you guys shoot me an item that I could use this go around then I will get what mileage out of it that I can.

Anyway it is a short one. Seen in your heavy hitter builds and let me see if I can get those huge numbers.

❤

Internet Rule # 34.2

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If something is, then there is a pony of it.

A few weeks ago I started reading the rules of the Internet for inspiration in general. And read that one and instantly started looking for a Samius-pony. But the internet failed me. No Samius-pony.

Until @Clankenbeard saw my tweet and now:

SamiusPonyTime

The internet is once again complete, for now!

New is Always Better, Right?

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Last night Java, Steam and Torrance (the Wife) went to try our hands at the some of the new quests. For the record Java might not be the best one for this quest but as I have never run it before and atm he is my go to guy for new content (wf Fvs with tons of great gear) he made the most since to me at the time. Oh and he is the only lvl 20 guy I have on my account flagged for FR. I have a few 20+s but xp for the wife was a factor.

First up Thorn and Paw. Step in on hE.

Side bar. Can we all agree to use eX for epic difficulties and hX for heroic difficulties? Cool thanks.

OH might be thought of as spoilers………………..

So we get started the 2.5 of us on hE. Buff and start moving and a wall of plant mobs show up. I BB and the wife firewalls and all the plant mobs stop and start Acid Balling spamming for 150 over 30 rests. Which while great from a challenge point of view, I mean that feels smarter to me (stand back out of the aoe and spam high dps spells), but it is a bitch when applying the beat down via non-evasion builds.

Almost right away the wife’s hirehealbot dies due to the huge incoming spell damage. I end up casting heal almost every time it is off timer until the last tree caster is down.

As we move along the quest seems simple enough, the fights are a little costly. The fighting the named Druids we encounter along the way plus the acid spamming trees are real tough but we press on. Clear one side and do the thing. Trying to be simi spoiler free, but I think people that know the quest know what I am talking about. Anyway doing the thing opens things up so more mobs can come at us and we are running low on Sps but we get back to the middle.

Start clearing the other side post shrine and rebuff, I move Steam to the middle which seems safe to throw those buffs. When the other side and I realize that there must be another shrine on the first side that we missed as we stumble into what is clearly a shrine room. Look over and Steam is dead? Nice.

Get back to the middle where I need to clear some trash (that showed up to kill Steam while my back was turned) running myself low on Sps while the wife looks for the other shrine and falls in to a hole and dies. It is not funny, but today I can’t help but smile a little. As soon as I am able I get to her and get her up. And together we find the shrine. And head to what we think is the end fight. But the way is still blocked. Okay go ahead and look at the wiki. It says check the pits for trash. 4 or 5 dead mobs later and the end fights starts.

Which was super cool, at one point I was using both accounts at the same time while the wife kited the room around. Mostly do to my own dumb actions…. Over all new quest and on hE 6kish xp and the wife is starting to get despaired.

We move on to Outbreak where in the first room we are over whelmed with mobs casters and melee alike. And have to deal with casters spamming fear and chain lighting lets just say at that point the wife was done….

Post her leaving I swapped to As400 with the plan to do more Seal runs when I say Oncler doing what I thought was Epic xp runs in Party Crashers. Turns out we were only doing the one run then moving on to Snitch which is bugged as hell btw and not worth the time. About then food was ready and I logged to eat and watch TV.

Later I get back on to do a challenge run for mats 20 mins and 3 pots later, I need a better non-Necro killer caster for some challenges. What do I get? Less then 200 armor fragments. Might need to get a little better on that one….

Already long so I am going to call it. Rock out kids.

<3s

Waiting for Tobril

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Last night I had plans with Tobril to xp him up some in hopes that he would be ready to hit the tree here real soon. But as the best plans do, ours turned to crazy train when encountering the enemy. In this case Tobril’s day job.

I logged on about 30 mins before we were due to team up on As400 (wiz/2 epic) and Steampower (that alt account arty I have been talking about), with the plan to do a Seal for the Ring of Elemental Essence run on ehard.

25ish mins later, Brawnpits runs to the end and I lot my chests. Bracelet seal is close to what I am looking for, it is a seal after all, but not the prize I am hunting. I did pick up a scroll of the Mirror cloak so that was good and a full token across the two accounts.

About that time I get a txt from Tobril, work is dumb, Move eta back 40ish.

No problem, I fire up a second run. Mean while my wife is playing music via youtube on her PC. Not an issue until I catch the repeat train starting to roll out of the station and I have to nip that shit in the butt. We need to set some ground rules about playing the same song more then 5 times an hour. I ask her to through in some song rotation and see agrees but says she wouldn’t have to loop things if songs where 20 mins long again…. Btw she played the song that was stuck in my head a few weeks ago. Shouting that was the one song she counters of course a BJ song would be stuck in your head…… And she starts to read the lyrics to me and the youtube comments guess I wasn’t the only one that didn’t catch it right away. But when the only line that I remember is “to nights the night” over and over I just don’t see it.

Any I am about done with run number 2 when I both ask her to jump in and pike/be extra pulls and I inform her that it is my turn to pick a song and telling her to find one the Gangnam style videos. I am thinking I will fight fire with fire. She can’t find it so I move to a save spot and fiddle with my browser and get it started. When I turn back my safe spot wasn’t so safe after all and I loose my ship buffs. Things take a little longer as I lost a lot of SP due to deaths and recovery so I have to shrine an extra time but things move well enough.

Still no seal.

A few more runs and I get a txt from Tobril “Eta is off, work is dumb”. So I keep running 4-5 more runs for the night with 3 pullers. Another seal of the bracelet a few scrolls among the three accounts at least 1 per over the night and any time they wife wasn’t at her keys to loot her own chest I got extra fragments. Nothing in life is free. After all she got at least a ED rank or 2 for not a lot of work and I took her out for dinner. Sure she paid but that is not the point. ☺

Any way Tobril didn’t make it by 930 my time and 3ish hours of farming is all I got in a week so I read comics and went to bed where as I understand it one of the mother in-law’s dog puked on me in the night. Wonderful….. Did I tell you that the mother in-law went out of town and that the Gruobo dog kennel has opened? I now am sharing my bed with 9 dogs. No wait, 8 dogs my son keeps his pug at night. But that is a lot of bodies in my bed not making my every wet dream come true… So when I end with “Sooooooo Sleepy” you will understand.

<3zzzzzzzzzzzz

I am Tired of Roses

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For the last few weeks (in game) I have been taking a little bit of a TR/xp break to stop and smell the roses. For a week or so it was forced, with computer issues, the last week I am just hanging waiting for Tobril to cap out so we can go again. I have been helping him and the wife get to 20 and farming things for my alt account. Generally just doing whatever hits my fancy. And it was just the ticket as I was feeling a little burnt out from the TR xp grinding…

But after all this time working on xping this guy or that guy, not xping to the hit just feels wrong…. I know right? Sounds nuts. I needed a break because I was feeling the burn out but now in less then two weeks I am chomping at the bit to jump back into the fray.

In part I feel the light at the end of the tunnel. Even though I am not sure if that light is open skies or an oncoming train.

I might need to do something I don’t really like to do and start a side project. I mean I have lots of guys that need work, but for some reason or another working them in the “end game” environment doesn’t make me excited.

So what to do?

I have alts that I have been sitting on for a while now.
Healz needs some tweaking to become a better endgame healer.
As400 needs some gear farmed up.
Samiusbot is likely to become “my” arty
Java might become a druid
I have an alt clr that needs to TR into a proper Bowonk.
And my monk could use a TR live and a race change to Helf.

So many things to do and no motivation to do any of them, I just want to xp Samius.

Not long ago Tobril and I had a talk about lowering the number of Alts he is maintaining. At the time I thought like I will ever cut back. But I already have and I didn’t know it.

Samius gets most of my play. Then in the last few weeks my alt account arty. But Samyus gets the second most play over all; the guild needed more good tanks. Java is mostly used now as a help 17-21 level guys if Samius is out of range. AS400/Butterz fills my epic play as limited as it maybe. And that is about it. Oh Samiusbot is my non-epic Cannith bits farmer. SamiusJr ransacks the Giant’s Vault once a week to pay for Samius’ TRs.

Thing is I don’t question these things when I am TRing Samius. I have a goal and a plan and get out of the way or I will go through you. Resting up for a big push is well and good. But too much time and I start to get antsy and I get myself into something I don’t need to worry about.

Gah!

❤

What am I? Where is my DDo Happiness?

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For my 400th post I wanted to go a little deeper then a weekend report so I ask myself and I hope to inspire you to ask yourself: What am I? and Where is my DDo Happiness?

I just wrote half a page rambling a long to get to the meat of my question, and I thought it boring to reread so I am editing all that fat out to ask myself this better question, “What do I want out of my “final” build?”

I am at the point that I will be starting my final tr life needed to get my feat. And having played everything I am not 100% sure what I am any more as a dnd player.

Things I do know I need:
A blue bar
Self healing
Removal spells
Combat options
Speed
Lots of Hp for wiggle room

Thing is I am not sure any more what that means for me when it comes to builds. Other then a dick being a wizard is my truest nature. But is it really? I like having every option at my fingertips; maybe that calls more to the bard/arty/druid classes then the others. If the arty had a slightly better spell list I could see going full on arty. If there were a few more scroll options from vendors I could see being a bard for a while. And after playing the druid it is a super strong class even more so then the wizard to have the right tool for the job. But are those sometime alt builds or are they me? So no real help on heroic levels. But I still have a few lives I think before I have to make that call.

Guess I don’t really have any point to this post right now. It is not like I will come to any answers right this minute and take off shouting eureka around the office. But I totally would if I had a final build pop into my head.

As always I am just trying to share my thoughts as we all can become better players. Until 401, Where is your DDo Happiness?

❤

Early thoughts on the Catholic Priest

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Over the last few days I have really been thinking about how I will be leveling up next life and I think I have a loose out line that I am calling the Catholic Priest model.

Why am I calling it that? Because it is a holy man with the bad touch. ☺

Okay after doing some reading I found in the case of a level tie how the game decides to break ties. And if you don’t know it is like this take all the original classes and put them in alphabetical order then add the new classes in the order they were added. The wiki has a list on the Past_Life_Feats page under the heading Dominant Class. But if you can remember in alphabetical order then new you will be good most of the time. So Monk/Pally tie would go to the Pally as it is an OG class. Barb/Bard would go to the Barb as it would come first in alphabetical order.

So a 9/9 monk/pally split would work out for my past life being a pally. And that is good news, as that leaves me with 2 extra levels to play with.

I am debating on splashing for trap/full umd or feats. I was going to do arty levels because I really like how their spells even at low levels. And then I could go Helf and the Rogue Dilly for more sneak attack damage then I could with two rogue levels.

And come one what holy man doesn’t want to smite evil into the spleen of evildoers.

But I have to say that fighter is also a good option over Arty. Sure you loose trap skills and full umd but gain 2 feats a haste attack boost and +1 str. So I will need to look at that option later on.

So lets look at the meat of the build, stats. 14 15 16 12 12 12. With tomes stat requirements, ie GTWF, are handled when we can take them. If we first level arty that is 20 skill points enough to start all of our important skills and for monk levels that is 5 so con/search/disable and then we can use the second arty level around level 10 or 11 to re-max umd and any other skills we left behind. Once int tomes start to roll in extra points can roll over into Umd or Balance as needed. I also tend to skip a level or two of maxing trap skills to get balance to 10 I find that 10 is a good number for me in balance.

I just looked at the time and my to do list for the day and I better run. More on this Monday, either more thoughts or maybe a probber layout or even how I started to build the thing. You know when I will start a TR. ☺

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As of Today, All is Right and Good in this World

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And by world I mean Sarlona and mine, what you thought I have power over your world? Well I do, I am Samius after all, but I wouldn’t think to impose my will on your life unless you joined my lfm…

Yep, my replacement pc came just before lunch yesterday and an excuse was hatched to take off the rest of the day and I played DDo!

Real fast my check list for setting up a new pc.
Install Chrome.
Install AVG
Install DDo
Copy DDo to a second folder for dual boxing
Install Skype/Pamela
Check all VoD plugins – Sliverlight and whatever Amazon uses.
Done.

Thinks I missed/ Need to add.
Bluetooth drivers
Open Office
Audio editing software (Cool Edit is my editor of choice)
Profit?

If I am missing something let me know. Game Guide is not required for me right now but I can see an argument for it. : )

So I got to play and I mean full on no massive super lag play. /happy dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS1cLOIxsQ8

So what did I do?

Farm the locked chest in Servants of the Overlord for a 3rd time in two weeks. Going to say that the Silver linger doesn’t really drop here any more. Ransacked it 4-5 times with 2+ sets of pullers and nothing even close to Xbow like.

Do a run through with the wife to get her to FR side and we get to of the bows???? Me thinks that we might have gotten a loot patch on that chest… But I will farm a few up even if getting one will destroy the world!!!!!! Just my luck I will finally get on 12/21/12……

Okay lets see what else…..

I helped Torrance (the wife’s main) get over to FR, piked the boys Pally over also might as well right? Once she got over she had some shows buffered on the DVR she wanted to watch so I did some bank/bag work and started to read an Avengers with Dr Strange as I “main guy.” Marvel, wtf? He was in one panel and had one line. But it had Iron Man pre Skull Invasion and showed IM questioning everything all the time so it was worth the read. Btw Tony totally saved the day as always and Giant Girl (aka Wasp) as Carnage was totally badass!

It wasn’t long before Tobril logged on and we did some xp for him. I used Samiusjr (1/2ling monk lvl 20) and I started to remember how much fun a monk can be, aka soooooooo fast. 10-13 min runs in Enter the Kobold and some of the backside of IQ in 3-4 min runs. Think tonight we are to do Monstary of the Scorp might need to see if he wants to do a full loop for my arty an amp/amp/ docent might be nice to have around sometimes…..

Making some assumptions based on the content we are running for xp, I would say he is super close to 20 and then we can get back to TRing. After this little break I am ready to go again. Just need to decide on a pally build…..

<3s

I got to Play, Well Kinda.

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Last night I decided to push threw the visual pain of trying to play DDO using the on board video card and do something. At first I thought if I could just ransack the locked chest in Servants of the Overlord, looking for a Silver Slinger I would be okay on the whole use of my time for the night and take the edge off of not playing. But I saw Tobril farming xp and after a few runs at the chest I switched to my F2P pally.

This Pally is again mostly for my son, it was his first alt. But he doesn’t play all that much so he lingers until I feel like pulling him/it along and then he gains a few thousand xp and he is done playing or I am tired of having a piker around. Aka a great side project to have while my computer is having issues.

So Tobril is zerging nMissing.

With 2 or more people that know their job and invis clickies it is not a bad run. Normally for me, I am unlikely to lower my streak and end up running it on Elite and letting the setting eat the fun out of the quest, and I don’t want to even think about that quest again. Thankfully first life alt account guys streaks don’t matter so I was able to tag along.

I was assigned the task of getting the book in the school/church that one guarded by the 2 mind flayers. I would run, jump into the water climb out run in to the building, pull a lever run in grab the book try and get out. Most of the time I had to kill the mindflayers. Most of the time I would roll a 1 on a mindblast while trying to kill the flayers, hoping the timer ran out before I died. Just to be clear I did have my brain ate at least once, on the first run. But I think the following runs were fine.

While I did that Tobril would solo the rest of the quest, including the end fight. If I was lucky and fast I would get to help some at the end fight. But most of the time I arrived in time to loot a chest and DD.

Speaking of DD, you ever see someone cast a spell and vanish and then 3 or 4 sec later see the DD fade in? Just as an example for the kind of visual lag that I was dealing with.

One run I had a few mobs on me on the path to the end fight. Waiting for Tobril to finish up his part so he could kill everything and I could help with the end fight. And I was in real trouble, I was down to one lay on hands and just a few more 100 sp for cure spells left, and I was hoping Tobril was almost here when all the mobs but one died. Then a saw a fireball and the door open to the end fight and I looked around for Tobril. Checking the map he was already at the end fight. He ran past me/ saved me and I didn’t even see him.

But we had the run to 4-6 mins for 4-5k and it was a good run. Will have to add it to the list to suspend the streak (via gold seal hire/alt account) and then xp zerg it just to keep things time efficient.

But after days of little to no play last night was fun if gut wrenching.

The new computer is out for delivery so I hope to be a playing fool this afternoon and later tonight.

❤

Samius Does TV prt2

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With the computer down I have an abundance of free time that I have now used to take the family out to dinner for the week. Catch up on Iron Man and Farscape Comics even found another comic I really like Saga and picked up some Doctor Strange a book I have always wanted to read but never found the time. But as the title might give away I have been watching lots of TV. And as I like shows I hate feeling like I am wasting my time just watching TV when I could have something on and farming xp or some bit of gear if I am just going to be sitting around.

Anyway I happened to notice that there was going to be a marathon of one of my favorite shows and I set the DVR to tape 4 or 5 of them. And it got me thinking. It has been awhile since I made some lists.

So todays list my favorite TV shows. Some slots will have ties, okay one slot; I think you will understand why.

5, Survivor Man – Most of the shows on this list have a level of rewatchabilty higher then most programs on TV. This show happens to be the one that I was watching last night as I was mentally making this list. Also how many shows get to return from the dead? A few years ago Les retired from doing Survivor man I thought to focus on his music, but now he is back with Survivor Man 10 days. Instead of walking out like he has done many times he goes in to more detailed look into 10 days of trying to thrive in a survival situation this is made possible because the show is broken in to two parts, each having 5 days. Makes two hours flyby like never before.

4, Mentalist – This is one of the two best shows on tv right now. Funny and smart often giving you clues that you might over look and then you say I get it at the end. Sometimes I am fooled even, but I am generally good at notice the clues shows.

3, Suits – This show is the other best show on Tv right now, sorry to any Whovans. (yes Doctor Who would be 6th on my list). Also funny and smart it has a killer cast and amazing writers. And I can watch and re-watch almost any episode at any time and enjoy it.

2, Buffy/Angel/Firefly – How do you pick just one Joss Whedon show? I can’t really. I might say Firefly had a little more in the over all plot department, but Angel had real moving character development and Buffy well is just amazing over all and has Willow in it. See how you just can’t pick just one. But all of these shows live in my recently watched list on Netflix.

1, House MD – By far the best TV show for me. Funny, smart amazing story lines, character development and one of the few shows where I can’t know the answer because I am not a medical encyclopedia.

If I expanded this out to a top 10 I would need to find slots for Doctor Who, MASH, Batman the animated series (this is “my” batman), Dexter; should have set it with Suits really as it has all the same qualities and it is clearly on of the best shows still on. Lie to Me is another top 10 contender.

Then we start falling deeper into my past but maybe I will do more lists for the next few days. After all how much DDo can I talk about with out playing? Lots but nothing helpful…

❤