Monthly Archives: January 2013

I LOVE Me NICE Axe!

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Normally I am not a big fan of axes. They have a place in my tool box, but normally I use them at low levels for impressive one shots. But over all axes feel very swingy to me and as I get into the levels I like my damage numbers to be consistent. I like knowing for example with in 8-15 points what my damage rolls are going to be, even if that means I am doing less damage over all. To me it allows me to plan things to prevent “Its him or ME” moments.

I am doing 90s points a swing.
The mob has about X hp left x/90= y swings.
Mob is hitting for Q so I have Q/hp= hits left.
Do I need to move off and heal?

We all have that same mental guess work the methods are not always the same however. Some people (like me) do fast guess work math; others use the seat of their pants “feelings”.

Darth, so far has been a falchon kind of guy. He was when he was a barb and that just stuck around as a fighter. As a Kensei let me tell you criting on a 14 and better is sweet and with all the different prereqs to make kensei 3 happen if the mob can be crit and I roll that 14+ I will crit. But even with a x2 I am getting very large swings, most crits are in the 300-500 range but my biggest so far has been 1693. So there is a little room in the how hard do I hit department.

My plan was simple, farm web for
Breach
And be happy.

But then shards and scrolls started to happen and suddenly an epic Antique in is reach.
Antique
Which is kinda the king of dps DR breakers unless you have a stack of the right temp augments to slot in as needed, which I don’t….

Meanwhile, Tobril has been working on his tanky guy and has been talking up the some of the Axe abilities in Legendary Dreadnought. Namely Headman’s Chop… +1 to the multiplier with axes on a 19-20…

Those two things and the endless web hunting for the Breach made me wonder if a
Axe
wouldn’t be more damage, IF I could live with the swingy nature.

Running a Web last night I pulled (okay was passed) a
Hammer
And it was doing 100-120 a hit before crits, which really is a major step up over my other S&B weapon
other hammer

IDK, what do you think of this on my Kensei?
LD layout

First of all switch to Greataxes so crit range goes back to 18-20 (1×2+1=3) but the crit multiplier gets huger?? With lots of Seeker, Overwhelming Critical, all the Kensei damage boosts I can’t see an easier way to get those massive crits then to switch to the Greataxe… Can you?

Anyway, thanks DDoWiki.com for the images.
<3s

The Loot has been Good Lately, Real GOOD Even

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So I have talked a lot lately about things that happened in my vacation gaming bender but something I have hinted around but haven’t come right out and said is that the loot gods have been simi generous to me for the last week maybe two weeks now. And just as a memory test and hopefully sharing a little hope I am going to list a few things.

Litany – Boom max Int is totally possible for Samius if I was a Drow…. Meanwhile in the land of Hps I will just have to live with a max Int for a non drow/human person. Yep that means I now have both chase items for maxing Int, Litany and a +5 tome.

2 Abbot Seals, in 6 runs (did one last night and the party was mostly skunked) I got these 2 seals and that litany. Now I have one left and a clean Litany. ☺

Shards:
Antique Greataxe
Marilith Chain
Darkstorm Helm
Bow of the Silver Flame
Hell Fire Cross Bow (for the Alt account)

New Seals:
Marilith Chain
Darkstorm Helm

Some of these are real funny as Tobril has been chasing the Dark Helm for a while now and I luck sacked into them either while he was off doing something else like a Web with out me or otherwise not around. Also when I pulled the Helm Shard I went to check my list and mean while the group leader starts sending me tells and saying things in party to the effect that he had need chasing this shard. So when I return and loot the thing, as I didn’t have one, he is a little displeased and takes off taking the other healer in the small pug of melees. But what do I care and me and the other melees rock the quest a few more times with 0 need for a healer. Then last night just because I hadn’t ransacked the chest yet the wife and I did 3 or 4 zerg runs and pulled the matching seal. So looks like As400 will be exchanging his hats after all.

That Hell Fire is now the main weapon on my Alt account arty. It is a little better then the Holy Burst/Righteous that I crafted him up like 10 levels back.

And maybe I can dig up a seal for that Great Axe and then pull a Cleaver, Hewer of Suffering then I can go all Axe for my dps guy and rock a larger crit number if I loose critting on like a 14. ☹ Btw my shitty +5 Holy Burst Silver epic Falcon of Vamp got a few 1300+ crits so far now. And one 1693ish crit. I feel like a real dps alt now. Sure I need a healer to keep me alive on anything harder then eHs and my saves are shitty and around 800ish Hp I am not super uber in the hp department…. Where was I going with this????

Oh and now I have everything but the base item to make an Epic Marilith Chain for Darth, But I am also less then 10 reds and a few coms away from a FR red set so it is a race to see what Seeker +10 armor I can make first.

Okay that helps some, time to focus down and finish this project that my boos wanted done by the start of the new year, that he has given me 6ish months to work on so far and I figured that would take 18 months…. Yeah that is my life right now.

<3s

Lets all Cry about My Web Fail

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Some time this post Christmas pre New Years we had the DG/HoDW teamed up for stuff. When there are 7 or more of us we do raids and when there are 6 or less we EE or xp/gear farm something fierce. Just happened that we had 8, I think, so raids it was. We did the normal runs, Von, ToD, Chrono whatnot until it was back to Web time. Loaded for bear and with our last run a win we had a simi-clear plan and a certain we will totally win attitude.

We had a death or two from legs but the taking down Loth in the start was fairly quick and worked well. I was incharge of Anna. No offence to Tobril but NPCs go out of their way to piss him off, which he takes out on all of us. ☺ SO when able someone is in charge of watching Anna. And we were off. All was well and good.

We did have an issue with Anna getting stuck in a spot and called a DM to fix her. Thankfully it only took a few mins to get a Dm and he was quickly able to help us.

Our shrine use was way better then our first run, even better then our second as Anna shrined where I asked and didn’t zerg off into mobs before popping a shrine, so everyone got to use the first shrine vs having to spawn a second to allow everyone to shrine up.

The fights went very well and we all thought we had this one everything was going our way.

At the end we pulled and cleared trash really well. But we skipped knocking down Loth the second time; I think we will apply the beats from now on. We clear all the keepers other then the Necro, I am sitting at the top ready to go. The wall falls and I run threw the world goes pear shaped and everyone on the top island is ported the point where we first free Anna. Anna is with us and at the 75-80% mark. But we didn’t win and we needed to clear the keepers again but this time with the increased spawn rate. ☹ But we are DG we can do anything. I guess we were also Heroes of Dragon Wrath but you know. WE ARE DEFENSE!

We re-gather and re-shrine, pulling Anna along for a shrine. We push on, hard core play mode ON. Loth was doing a number on our blue bar people (this is the main reason we will beat down from now on) but we pull everything together the wall drops, again we rush threw, pear shapes happen everyone on the top island again is ported but no Anna….

In goes a Tix… Things take a little longer this time, but 10 or 15 mins of waiting and Anna pops to the start point again as if she got killed. Great! A few mins later the same DM shows up but after much talking (Tobril got the feeling that the DM was looking for an answer) turns out we were hosed and there was nothing he could do.

Just to be clear here i think the DM did everything he could but there was just nothing that he could do…

We tried a third time but we where mostly morally beaten by then. And we didn’t have the will to really push on for what we “knew” would be a lost cause.

So what do I think happened? Well back when that DM first moved Anna I think it some how “broke” her. Either the game still thought she was back at the spot for completion reasons, or the DM when moving her did something that changed her ID. Idk the programing behind it, but after the wins we had the over the last week I know there was nothing that we did wrong on our end. I just would like to know that yes this is a thing and if something happens to Anna next time and a DM needs to intervene not to bother as it will/could break the quest.

<3s

Resolutions 2013

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So once again it is time again to layout a few simple goals and for the most part not bother with any of them. Well F that! I did fairly well last year and this year I will try and do as well.

1, Focus more on work at work. I know this one is super ironic as I start out every morning at work with my blog post and plan to keep doing so but a lot more time then I would like, I feel my mind wonder to this gear list or this build. And from those thoughts to lets just take a peak at the forums and then I spiral out of control. Ending up only getting 4-5 hours of work done in my 8-hour day. I can do better then that.

2, Keep reading but add in more learning materials, thinking one “thing” a month. One of the things I feel hampers me from ever leaving this dead end job is I spend my time working (mostly with old tools/teck), playing DDo or generally enjoying my free time. I need to get at least get a better idea of what is out there, even if that is all I learn….

3, leading again. Finally back to a real DDo goal. For a long time now I have used the early failures of the F2P groups as my excuse not to lead groups any more. And to be fair that time really left a nasty taste in my mouth. But I have been in the leadership role more and more lately be it leading the DG/HoDW team ups or even a raid or two. And while I don’t really like it, there are things that need to be done. At least on Sarlona some raids have completely dropped off the raidar (see what I did threre? ☺).

4, Be more grateful when the loot gods favor anyone, something I think a lot of people could work on. I like most people want things. Oh I love things. So when someone else gets things I get a little jealous and want them to give me their things. Sure I can be glad for friends and channel people but often I just want MORE STUFF for myself so even if I do feel happy for people I also have that hit of jealously. And I don’t think I can cut the jealously but I can try and be happier for others.

5, Be more forgiving in game. I am often quick to anger and long to cool down, at myself or others. A few quick examples (who doesn’t like a few short stories?):

Last weekend I burned a few bypasses with Tobril on Abbott runs, mostly to get his last few in for a 20th list before he TRs his FvS. The runs were mostly good but I don’t think we won goggles on the first try even though we were in the same room talking and planning out the path. So the other day when I saw what looked like a few good people leading one I was unsure if I wanted to give it a try. But I did and while it was filling a person (a reader here) sent me a tell and we talked back and forth. It so happens that we ended up in Ice. But almost at the end this person shot the island a little too far and I didn’t make it. Causing us to wipe ice, causing us to have to re-beat down. We happened to be the only room that failed. Had my partner and I not been joking and having a good time I would have been very pissed. Which was not needed and would not have been helpful. Instead we joked about it and it so happened that I got my Litany! So totally worth it!

One more, last afternoon I lead a CitW raid. Just on normal as I am still getting my bearings in the quest and I was super upfront as to my lack on knowledge of the raid, but I had a basic plan and was willing to take any input if anyone had any. And way the raid went really well. I even had a Twilight drop for me. With out really thinking about it I kicked it over to one of the Brits who had said he was looking for one when we started first learning the raid, THE 7 OF US. And he happily looted said item and life was good. Well as the group disbanded one guy asks if any named loot dropped? I say yeah a Twilight dropped. Then he asks, who looted it. I said the Brit’s alt name looted it expecting that to be it. And he points out that it is not in the loot list. I take a look as the wife and I were also talking about the stick and I ended up pulling up the wiki page on it for us to look at because it was not in the list. Then he says “Didn’t if fall in your name, Sam? Its cool if you kicked it to a guildie or something.” And I said yes it did and I passed it really with out thinking. And he goes Oh one of those groups; at least it was a completion…. And I got pissed. Not a sec ago he wanted to be sure it got looted or seeing if we got skunked and then it became he wanted my loot. I know color me ironic, but I don’t think I deserve anyone’s loot even if I want it… His little comment pissed me off had the Brits also not been logging off just then as it was getting on for them it would have made a real unfun play time for us for the next couple hours. Instead I took a break to calm down, thinking about it now I am a little pissed. See why I need to learn to let this kind of thing go? In hindsight maybe I should have rolled it off but like I said it was mostly with out thought and the Brits and I have been coming up together in this content even short manning the raid a time or two depending on wither you count tomorrows post as a win or not..

Anyway time to go. Hope you have a few resolutions on tap for the New Year and I hope you all have a good one.

<3s