Monthly Archives: March 2013

Shatter Shot Mar29 (Gearing up)

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So last night the wife and I went to the farm supply store to buy a stock tank. Like this:
stocktank

So I could make some thing like:
fishtank

For my aquaponics system, this winter I decided I needed a larger tank and more fish.

Instead of buying the tank I ended up buying this:
chickencoop

Yes it is a chicken coop. It is fairly lightweight so we will be able to move it fairly often and it looks like a million times better then anything I would ever be able to do on my own. Think we will be real happy with 4-6 little guys laying eggs.

In game I logged on with the goal of gearing up my rogue with the Threnalian War stuff. I ended up taking Samius and my piking account and soloing the Threnal west quests. More or less just zerged the hell out of them and then did the get the blade quests and boom matching long sword and dagger. Have to say the first damage number is not super impressive in the 20-30s but as I am not a str/power attack build going from a +1 heavy pick of I, X, Y and +1 short sword if X, Y to these guys I have the feeling that once I get them slotted and stone of changed ritualed I will be real pleased!

Then I took my stockpile of ore and hit the Nightforge, key was in the first room so luck was on my side. Cleared the path for my rogue and made a helm, chain shirt, and the choker. I wasn’t going to use the Chain but thought for like 9 or 10 ore why not have it as an option. And it was a good thing I did as I adding life shield to my current armor made it level 12.. I forgot that they moved Invulnerability to a power 3 so adding the life shield also power 3 shard made my item lvl 11 -2 from a masterful shard is level 9… So I am wearing the chain shirt. I need to decide how to fit in some fort. I have a heavy blue fort gem that I could slot for now but as I only plan to use this armor for less then a level seems like a waist. Guess I could craft a mod fort item real fast someplace…

Anyway didn’t get to do any playing with my new gear, but I will have some play time tonight and this weekend.

<3s

Shatter Shot March29 (my.ddo going down)

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And the list of options grows and grows. So the powers that be finally decided to let my.ddo.com go. Have to say while I didn’t “know” know I was fairly sure that I did “know” that it was going to be on its way out. At the different Gencons and talking to some of the devs that I have befriended and even more when I was visiting turbine during a convince I got the impression that my.ddo was just something that a higher up thought was a good idea and no one every really championed it. As a web dev my self I know what it is like to build/implement a tool that some manager things is a good idea but no one wants to take on. It stalls and then dies. So I am not surprised that it is going, but I am surprised that it will just be gone and I am surprised that a replacement will not be ready to go right away…

And between you and me I have been thinking of leaving my.ddo for a while now….

I was hosting Defenseguild.net for a long time. And I had my blogs located over there before moving to my.ddo. It was not cheep. I was over playing and was locked into a deal I didn’t really love. But looking at some other hosting services I could do a 3-4$ a month service easy enough. So I could host my own thing, solo. But I let it go for my.ddo because of the cost and because the traffic was just not super high when there was a free service that could do a lot of the same thing.

I could team up with some of the other bloggers like Grim (one of my Brits) and start our own thing. That would be lots of content to port and handle but more people to share the load of making content and building the actual site. But we haven’t really talked about that yet.

I could and from the sounds of it a lot of you all could team up with Geoff over @ gamergeoff/ddogamer. I like this idea a lot. 1, being lazy most of the work is done already I would just need to edit my back log of posts or import or just start fresh even… 2, forming a network is just a better strategy for maintaining content writers and readers. That was one of the main issues with the old DG website, just not enough writers and readers to justify the cost. 3, someone else is the boss. I really like not having to BE the boss. Most of the time I would rather let someone else drive but be ready to take over as needed if something important comes up. And while I wouldn’t be able to takeover on DDogamer I wouldn’t have to worry about going off a cliff that would be on Geoff.

Now an option I have be texting and emailing back and forth with Lessah that a lot of you can’t do is move my blog to DDoCocktailhour.com. It has lots of the same perks that joining Geoff and breaking out on my own has but I don’t think Lessah and I would want to bring the Brits along…

I don’t have a clear plan yet, I will know more after talking to some people this weekend and maybe a phone call with Lessah and Clank. But in the mean time I am going to keep posting here so watch out!

❤

Wednesday…

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So I was super ready for last night, Tobril has been out for work for more then a week and other then a short phone call driving home from my pnp game I haven’t spoken/gotten to hang out for a while. Also on the none guild night weekdays I have been kinda rudder less, mostly rocking one of the lowbees or doing one or two quests with the wife before she is burnt out. Frankly with out someone wanting something even on the weekends we can be unfocused.

So I had a plan for the night, first it was amazing out so I was going to put a good hour – hour and a half into the green house. Will talk about that in a min. Work a little on a trade list, game with everyone for a few hours and end the night watching a episode of Game of Thrones maybe while reading a comic… aka an amazing night!

So I get home and start to work. After about 30 mins the wife gets home with dinner and wants me to get inside and eat before it gets cold. Oh well, finish what I am doing and clean up the tools for the night.

After eating I get logged on and start working on a trade list. That lasts for like 3 mins. There is nothing more boring then making lists of stuff I am willing to trade…. There needs to be a better way. In retrospect I think I might use my piker account to make a private party and just start linking things and then copy the chat list one time per char and then edit the list in post vs trying to list everything by hand. Might try that soon.

So I wait for tobril, I run the ship and redo any buffs that need added. Seems like my part time job any more. I say to the wife didn’t I just do this? She replies that she did a bunch last week and it was not her turn. When I reply I guess with the two of us playing most of the time I guess that is just how it is… Speaking of she noticed that we were super close to 80 but just the two of us can’t make much in gains vs the renown loss need to play more I guess.

Anyway about 630 my time I get a text, Stuck at work. Hope to be on later – Tobril. Hmm, well at this time the wife wants to do something but again we are rudder less. I want to work on my Rogue, he is ready (and took) level 8 but there are just a few more 5s I want to BB real fast. But I could use the last hour of the day and get some more work on the Green house done. So we shift gears and head back out side.

Green House update: the end cap walls are framed up and I got a door poorly hanged we shifted it slightly as to have a little more room around it for the chickens tracker thing I plan to work on next. We get the tarp I plan to use as a floor down and all I have left b4 laying the plastic is getting the inside laid out/filled and pinning the walls down so I don’t have huge sails in my backyard. Tonight I buy a water trough for my fish tank for watering and my aquaponices setup.

Anyway as dark falls we head back in, no Tobril the wife is done and is ready to watch TV with the boy. So I am in solo/pugville so I solo the last of my 5s and take 8.

About nine I log for the night and watch ep 5 of Game of Thrones and hit the sack. Have to say I don’t feel as satisfied as I would like but as it is Thursday I can’t complain much.

<3s

So pissed

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Last night post recording the new Cocktailhour (which is up @ http://www.ddococktailhour.com btw) I got to spend a little time playing. And I don’t know about your server or maybe it was just me but things were super laggy.

Now normally I don’t get a ton of lag or I get mild lag that I can live with like an item doesn’t swap or a clickly doesn’t click. But last night I was getting thrown back and or freezing for 5-10 secs at a time not all the time but often enough that I was worrying about lag deaths most of the night.

But I was able to play around the lag a lot of the time by not playing things close to the chest. But after spending over a min knocked down in the STK end fight I was steamed up, but I was able to knock Stk xp with out a death.

I have xp to level to 8 but I still have a few more level 5s to knock out and I want to start banking xp because I am thinking sands quests are not going to be a helper on my sneak attack driven alt.

Quick aside: I am getting in the grove of using Bluff while I am running to the next mob. I would like the timer to be shorter I can only use it every 3rd mob or so but still 20 damage a swing vs 40-50 points a swing is a big deal. Blinding weapons cannot get here soon enough!

Checking the list the last few 5s I care about are in Splinter Skull, no problem. Re buffing and heading out I start to notice things dragin on. Fine I can do this. Get in and start SLOWLY pulling and clearing. I am on the get the key quest in the chain aka the one with the super mobs. So I take care and pull smart and use bluff to drop casters and then boss mobs and then trash. A few big spikes but in single combat 5-10 sec of lagged out time stop is not a huge deal. I get to the key check easy enough and start pulling the trash off the chest. Kill a caster and a trash mob when the game enters stop go stop mode.

Stop – the one caster I am on is the only mob around.
Go – Drink a CSW pot and now the other caster is also on me.
Stop – swear
Go – Comeback held
Stop – Oh a trash mob is running this way
Go – tripped get up drink a pot start to run away
Stop – Okay, at ¾ life but its all good.
Go – held
Stop – hmm
Go – hold timer starts again
Stop – FML what is with all the damn lag
Go – Hold timer again restarted also tripped
Stop – shit I am at 40 hp…
Go- come back dead the mobs are walking off!

I was so pissed I slammed my mouse on the table almost knocking my Tea over… Shouted a few swear words, as this is the first death on this guy that was unplanned ie the quest is done and I don’t want to bother killing all this trash and I need buffs anyway deaths which was one time, btw. I was so pissed I knew I was about to tilt real hard and while I had the Sully cake in my pack I decided to just release and go watch TV with the wife.

Man I hate it when something like that happens. It is so aggravating and reminds me why I don’t play PD even though I am compelled to try it again.

<3s

I like Mondays

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Well I like Mondays after work anyway. Mondays for me is Samius time, not that every other moment of my life isn’t Samius time… But Monday is really Samius time. I don’t have any other plans and can just be care free with my play.

Last night my Monday was spent in game, it was too cold for a nice bike ride or working on the green house. Give me 2 or 3 days of fair weather and I will knock it out and get my grow beds rocking. So my in game time was more or less split between my Arty and my new rogue build. And they couldn’t play more different even though they are very similar.

My starting plan was to start on McPlunderer and hit Ghost of a Chance until I was burnt out. I logged on my alt account and shared the quest using him to open the quest. Don’t under value the helpfulness of an opener. I was almost to the quest, 3bc is a big open explorer with no ports after all, just then the wife says, “Lets do something.”

I say sure and inquire what she wants to do. After watching her switch alts for 10 mins while I just wonder around the explorer zone she finally decides she is willing to play her clonkish alt so I can use Samiusbot.

We do a few runs in the House J graveyard, about the time I remember how to play Samiusbot well, she is ready for dinner and thinks she is done for the night. I tell you there are not a lot of builds out their with a greater ability to change combat styles mid stream then a (simi-well equipped) WF Arty…

Also it was nice playing the arty in a quest where invis wouldn’t have worked anyway so I didn’t miss it. But I would love for it to work again…. In any case I got to use my new mace a lot and still got to rock my Xbow. Took me awhile to get in the swing of things with all the different layers of defenses the Arty has, Stoneskining the turret while I lit the funeral pyres in Beyond the Grave was a big help once I remembered I had those spells…

Anyway post dinner, I was back on McPlunder who doesn’t have the option to be good at ranged damage yet, but he will… So for Ghosts he was using his heavy pick and shortsword. The guys were tough enough that I could play with the bluff skill and got to see my sneak attack damage for a change. I can really see those sneak attack d6s doing their job as I climb the ranks some. Think once I get a little higher and start grouping more then I will really like this guy a lot. Right now I am wondering how come he is not stunning everything! Blinding weapons can not come soon enough.

All right you all! Hope you all had a good Monday and remember only 4 days left until the weekend.

❤

Let’s Talk About Plats, Baby

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Let’s talk about you and me
Let’s talk about all the good things
And the bad things that may be
Let’s talk about Plats

So after a week of hardly playing due to spring break I have to say this weekend was a good one. Got lots of time in game on Firday night and Saturday to hang with the Brits and most of the morning before heading to my pnp game. In our normal fashion when we are low manning things we hit whatever quests we wanted. We did some GH and some FR stuff. We even worked in an EE Madstone run that while fun was very draining and took a long time. Next time we skip optionals until the end if we do them at all.

Anyhow we got some pulls but not the belt I was hunting for Darth Samius. So when we picked up where we left off on the next day I hit the AH/SH just hopping to find one of the belts for a good price. The shard exchange prices on Sarlona are still out of hand in my opinion so I pass on the 1 or 2 belts I see listed. But there happens to be one EH belt on the AH for 750k plat. Darth has all of 300k on him but the ladies are able to lone me 250k each so I don’t have to spend the time swapping around to move some plat. And I pick up my belt off the AH.

In the corse of playing and swapping alts for different quests I repay the ladies and realize I am super plat poor. Log story short I have been just buying the GH loot off the AH due to my poor farming skills, aka time to use this +2 weekend and a few loot gems to make some Plats.

I have talked about in the past about where I go to farm plat but for some reason, cough invis bug cough, I have had issues with some old standbys. So I want to both share my list and ask you for any quests you might farm when you are plat poor.

DQ 6 man, normally a no brainer, 3 amazing chests per run and little to no time to ransack them but this quest was having real issues due to invis still not working right to the point after 6 or 7 runs and 2 deaths due to skull issues while invised I said enough and moved on to.

Von2 maze chests, You have to know where the chests can spawn and using the friendly target or “radar” figure out where the chests are so you can get them and get out with out a fluke death but once you have it down it is a fast 2 chests.

Raiding the Giant Vault, this guy is one of my go tos because again once you have it down you can get 5 chests in 2 mins they are not all super high level chests but in two runs I got a 20% for 6 hour xp pot and a 20% guild renown pot.

Lets see what else …

Unquiet Graves got hit real hard. This quest also had the perk of getting the newly capped out or about to be capped out wife a ton of xp in 3 min runs. Kill 4 guys loot and DD reset. Sure there was only one chest but it was a good chest.

And of course we sacked Rusty Blades. Both for xp and the chest once the chest was sacked we did one more for people that missed a run and moved on.

Once I had decided to farm some plat I made about 750k xp I even did a shroud run thinking hey there are like a lot of chests in there. And for a speed run on hard it was not super fast to start but the quest its self was fairly quick once everyone entered… I could have done that a few more times…

Okay so where else? I would like to get a good buffer of a million plat per played alt if I can. Sure I could start to sell my EH/EE GH loots but I would either need to take the time to list things on the AH or make a trade list…

Like either of those things are going to be happening…

<3s

Random Thoughts: Weapon Changes

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I have been looking at gear for my rogue. One of the really great things about TRing an unloved under geared alt into something totally different is you can think about gear from a totally fresh place. Ie this guy was a clonk so almost none of his old gear aligns with his new life, unlike say Javabot going from Wizard to Pally to Fvs to Druid. All caster melee dps typed/geared builds. So being untangled can be a good thing.

So what do I do when my amazing level 4 gear starts to feel old? Hit the DDowiki. In this case I am looking at minimum 6-8 weapons.

Vorpal sickle of haggling: Man I would like to have one of these now between the vorpal changes and it would be a great off hand weapon.

But this is about changes not things I can’t get anymore.

Xoriat Forged Blade: Man this guy is real good now, +3 flaming, anarchic and a red slot long sword. Good but not super impressive until you notice that its damage dice is now 2d5… Yep it is almost a one handed greatsword. At level 6 this guy is fairly impressive.

Serpentbranch: +3, poison +6 to poison saves, purple and a red slot long bow 1.25[d8] but it is still BtA. Think I will farm one of these up super fast. I have an alt on my main account parked on the last bit I can use her or I can burn threw real fast on a capped alt.

Mace of Smiting: It picked up a red slot and is now a d10. That d10 change should have been applied to your old maces so getting a new one for a red slot is not really necessary.

Mace of Wrath: +3, ghost touch, force and a red heavy mace d8 just a really solid ghost killer think I will stick with a cannith crafted ghost touch flametouched iron X of everbright but this is a solid toy for breaking ghost bone times.

Sword of the Thirty: This is a real sleeper. +3, keen with a red slot greatsword 1.25[3d4] this is a really excellent no gear having Alt weapon. Stick one of the force rituals on it and your under geared melees are good to go.

Level 8s

Nightforged: All the Nightforged weapons got a nice boost. Most of them are now 1.5[d] and picked up a red slot want to say they picked up profile boosts. Like the avenger blade is now 18-20 and the hammer is x4 the dagger got the biggest boost in my eyes as they are slashing and piercing and extended crit range. Oh and the other stuff is nice too but I will save not weapon stuff for later.
Luckblade: This guy is a leveling casters dream as it picked up red, orange and purple slots. It is only +2 so adding spell power only gives a small implement bonus but hey 3 slots for spellpower are covered. Melees might like it as it is [d7] now and 3 slots cover a lot of stuff…

Most of the Tempest Spine stuff got a big boost. Enough I might even do some loot runs now at least for newer alts. The Nightblade and the Star of Irian got a real power boost.

Threnalian War X: These are with getting now. Red and purple slots on +5 weapons they both got a die step up AND 1.5[]ed. Casters if you only need two slots for spellpower then these guys are your leveling implements.

Okay I have covered my quota for the day. I will keep running this down in the coming weeks but lets just say there are some winners and some not winners in the loot changes. And if they are good I will let you know.

<3s

Picking your Pocket

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So even working on the floor I have gotten a little game time in. Not much but more then none. Monday I was able to go from 5 to 6 rocking the level 3s and 4s. Then Tuesday, I was able to hook up with some of the brits for some New Ring Leader on a bank alt that is chilling at level 4. Got them to level 4 on their TRs and got to hit a few other quests before I needed to head back to work. Last night I was back on McPlunderer finishing off my list of level 4 quests, well most of them anyway think there is 1 or 2 more to do before taking level 7. Like Proof in the Poison and Irestone might just hit the xp cap for this level…

Anyway, I want to talk about how things are working.

Well not bad, but not amazing. With out someone to take the agro 100% of the time my sneak attack damage is worthless after the first swing. Granted that first swing normally kills the guy but then all his friends are pissed. Bluff is a helper and having the second buff from being a Helf helps even more but still 2d6 less damage is a lot at this level. Lets just say I know that I will be rocking the blinding gear as soon as possible.

Also I will be crafting stunning/blinding runes….

Weapons may or may not take a hit real soon. I have a level 6 rapier with bodyfeeder and Icy burst, which would really help with the pot use, swear I am just downing the damn things left and right. Also I know that the Delera’s end reward list just changed (maybe for the better?) and I have an alt on the last part. Wonder if rocking that real fast would be worth wild?

Speaking of weapons I need to remember to move some Sunblades over. Zombies suck with a heavy pick and a short sword…

I know it is a shorty but hey I haven’t really played this week so I am running out of DDo talking bits. Oh I know I worked really had to run myself out of trap tools in Repossession. But I ran straight to the Book Binder quest and burned my last tool on the first trap box making it uncompleteable as I locked a hostage in that room… grumble… I don’t remember the last time I ran out of tools on a skilled person. But it happens.

Okay,
<3s

Quick and Dirty

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This week at least for my house is “Spring Break”. If you don’t know what spring break is let me run downs its life cycle by how I have lived it so far.

Very little – Just another week.
Simi Little – A week off school to watch cartoons and play video games
Mini Man – A week of chores/parent’s little slave bitch normally over and above the norm.
Full on Teen – See above but add in trying to get away from the House and/or watching the “MTV spring break” (Man I hope that is still on…)
Collage age – Either out making poor life decisions or setting yourself up for a lifetime of regret for not going out and making those poor life decisions.
Married and/or Home Owner– Chore time!
Married and/or Home Owner for a few years now – Time to avoid Chores at all costs!
Married and/or Home Owner for a few MORE years – Back to Chore time but with a little better expectations of what you want to do. Also trying to hide from the person with the to do list. ☺

So this week so far has been Spring Break and by that I mean put in new floors…

Starting Sunday, we started ripping out the old carpet. The last homeowners put it in a year or so before we bought it so it is not all that old. But I guess animals have shortened it’s life span a metric ton. So it needed to go.

Monday involved a trip to the dump painting because I thought if we are going to paint any time soon now would be the time as there are no floors to worry about and starting to lay floor. Oh and about 2-4 DDo break time to hang with the Brits.

Yesterday, more floor. We rocked the main room by 2:30 giving me a nice window to pause to hang with the Brits for 90 mins or so. Then we started the hallway. The angled many doored hallway… Around 9pm the wife and I looked at each other and said “dead?” and we stopped for the night. And I got about 30 mins of DDo in before heading to bed.

Now I am trying to cram in a full workday in another ½ day so I can take off at noon and finish up. Maybe I will get lucky and finish up simi early and be able to get in some more DDo tonight.

Wish me luck.

<3s

Leading from the Middle…

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It was a low party size DG & HoDW team up weekend, which was nice and a little sad at the same time. It was nice as we always had room for the people that were able to log in for short bursts and sad because as a whole we had little focus and didn’t really raid much. But we did knock out a FoT where things got a little weird.

First of all with now 7 completions total, I can’t say I am super raid leader guy on this one. I do know a few things namely the order I like the dragon/giant combo killed and to keep the dragon away from it’s giant or vice versa.

So when Grim through up an LFM I was fairly pleased, I get a completion and she gets to lead the public group. We start to fill and then we are looking for healer types. The wife offers to swap and Oncler joins on his druid.

Some of you know Oncler from my stories about him before. I like him a lot and count him as a friend. But he has a tipping point where he will tell you what’s up and how to pull your heads out of your ass if you are having issues. Some people take this in a good way others in a poor way. 90% of the people that take it poorly do so due to his tone, which can be a hurdle… I do the same thing, but I try to temper my comments with humor but the goal is the same.

So raid forms up and gets started, no one is clearly tanking or separating things which in the last few FoTs I have run have been fine in those runs we had a lot more ranged dps people. With Tobril out and the wife in a healing role, I started to notice how many people were melee only… Aka the trash didn’t naturally split off due to IPS + manyshots…. About that time Oncler yells that there is a trash build up and that the trash needed killed. About that time 3 or 4 of the melees die.

And a mild shit storm starts. He also yells out that the Truthful one needs a kitter which I take over being able to mostly self heal via scrolls and take the nasty one to the other side of the room.

I kite this guy in a kinda oval path as if I get breathed on or caught with a stun or what not he can drop be before someone can help me out. So on one of my loops he breaths and catches part of the party were I get an earful of how I should kite again from Oncler. I explain how and why I kite like I do (and Oncler backs down) but I will try to back and forth in an alcove to point the nasty one away from the party as much as possible and promptly get stunned and eaten.

About that time one of the brits on teamspeak says I am sure glad that this guy is in charge, where I reply that he is helping. Over look his tone and hear what he is saying. The raid starts to get a little more organized then. I try to be heard in game some Grim is relaying commands or giving ones of her own and things are easing up. Then we have just the last two. And we are working on the nasty one and Oncler points out a trash build up and that it needs to be cleaned up when another batch spawns on my head and I just die from lighting bolts from their spawning.

But the trash gets cleaned up about the time I can be rezed. A few more destiny powered MMs chain missiles and everyone is prepped. I go a little spammy and get the kills on both the dragon and the Stormreaver.

Have to say I learned a lot more from this run more then some of the others. I learned that there is an AOE effect when the trash is spawned and that the more trash there is the faster they spawn. I also we need to work on the role department when natural kiters are not around and put a little higher kill value on the trash. Also I watched one fighter pull a giant to its dragon I am guessing to be closer to the healers???? But just about as he did so they summoned some trash and people died.

Over all it was a good run if it had its rough moments, to the point where the wife again swears off healing it. ☺

Think I will be out tomorrow but should be back on Wednesday.

<3s