Monthly Archives: April 2013

134 mins, Slow and Steady Completes the Quest

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Last night after watering the plants and doing some light reading I logged in with the goal of rocking the rest of the DQ flagging quests. I grab a hire, Luna the Halfling Fvs and head out to Chains of Flame.

Now Samiusbot is not what I would call super geared up, but he is on his way. I know Chains is a long quest for the xp and doing it solo on a not real dps alt will make it even longer but I figure an hour or so maybe a little longer. My Slaver’s Hand Crossbow is not amazing dps but the Epic Storm is so much slower that they are about the same vs trash.

Pew Pew Pew

Did you know that epic Hard Chains of Pain is filled with traps? I did, but I don’t have the quest down like I do a lot of other quests.  So there was lots of oh snap there is a trap here, move move move! Luckily I tried to keep myself healed up and fire shielded so most of the “Surprise your on Fire!” traps weren’t too bad. Took me about an hour to get to the first shrine. I was tapped out but the hire was in good shape, she like a real person didn’t like to heal a robot. But she and I had a good working relationship when I was rocking some of the other epics solo… Maybe she was just mad at me…

At the 90ish min mark the wife says she is hungry and goes to make food. It is not something I can eat with out cheating on my diet so I start thinking I should find a save place to take an afk. But I press on.

She returns and asks if I am ready to watch a show with her. I say I just want to finish this quest atm and that is when she realizes I am still in chains I am about at the 2-hour mark. So we keep the Netflix at my desk running for a while. About the time I clear to the end fight she is done waiting which is fine I am mostly trying to stand some place safe with auto attack on auto charging my rune arm/firing it off and forcing the hire to heal with mass heal. So I am not super busy.

Finally clear the bosses and the trash that followed me. I have to clear a few more caster trash mobs that didn’t follow me as I back peddled to the ladders on my way to the chest and the orb… 43k xp….

But one more until I am DQ flagged by the weekend. See if I can do the next one on eNormal with out breaking my streak, otherwise I foresee talking about some of my anger issues in tomorrows post.

<3s

Better to Look Good then be Effective?

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Something weird has been happened in the DG and I want to say HoDW. Not that I have see this happen to a Hero’s member but I wouldn’t put it past them in hindsight….. I really don’t like this opening, but I think it captures my struggle with describing this phenomena.

SURPRISE! TIME TO GET FABULOUS!!!!!

Take two:

A few weeks back Tobril’s FvS started its epic gear up. He was able to swap out his leveling armor and weapons and put on his new post 20 armor. Think he is using the Epic Vambraces from the desert but he didn’t like the look so he hit the DDo store for a little cosmetic skin. Some how “Hey Sam, look at this!”  Turned into a full-blown fashion show for about 20-30 mins until a finial “very straight” look was decided upon. He landed on a very purple color scheme. He now joins the ranks of those such as Barney, Grimace and the Great Ape! Oh I forgot to mention that he has now dyed this hair purple AND uses the Antique Great Axe… He needs to change his name from Holybott to Fabulousbott Ohsnapgirlfiriend!

But that was just Tobril, he is the straightest arrow after all … Then it happened to me.

Which I had an excuse, but I really don’t. Samiusbot took level 21 and picked up Mithral Body to get a little PRR. Taking his just fine on a composite body Epic Blademark’s Docent and made it look funky. So I hit the Store as well, didn’t hurt that the armor kits were on sale…

As I start previewing kits and it happens. I ask for an opinion while someone is buffing and BAM, full on fashion show begins.  It felt weird trying on old standby skins but on a different body type so they were all different and new. And the commentary was nuts. Some of it was from me, some from them. Worf belts and pointing out massive belt buckles stand out in my brain, but there were many comments.

Finally I landed on a vest/backpack docent done in black. It goes well with my S&M mask according to Grim… Wonder if i can talk a dev into a spiked whip….

Earlier in the day Row’s new armor got the run down as well but not a fashion show. Think we missed it. But her new cat woman outfit was not to be missed.

Had I nabbed a screen shot I would have shared it with you all. But there was a moment when we were waiting for Holybott to get to Impossible Demands were I noticed everyone else was in black and were standing next to a purple flower bed and I made a joke able how Holybott was in 2 places at once. Taking a nap in front of the quest and running to it at the same time. I also pointed out that we were all in ninja outfits, well everyone but him and made some one of these things were not like the other. Need to get some Screen Shots….

Long story short we all look fabulous now.

<3s

PS, Our normal eh Von run finally dropped the shard of the dragon and to Tobril’s credit he offered it up for roll as he knew we all “ME THE MOST” wanted it. So naturally Row won the roll with the rule that she can’t cover it up with an armor skin, at least for now. So soon there we be 4 ninja’s and a couple of standouts in glowing armor!

Soon Java, soon you will have a new fiery docent then we will burn them all!

Is this the Answer? Or this? Or That?

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For the last few weeks the wife as been on a terror to get her first character to 20 and hunting new leveling gear so she can TR it into a dps pally build.  Not the way I would go for dps but *shrug, as long as she is happy right?

So I have been debating on what alt/build to bring with her on her sprint to 20 again. I want to be able to help in a meaningful way but I want her to feel like she is the big dog in our pairing….

I have been thinking that I might just use one of my bank alts that are chilling at 4 and then swap to my rogue (that I was loving) when she gets to 8.  But this morning for some reason I can’t shake the idea that I need to TR Butterz my bard.

I liked her being a setup for a long time. She is a true bard my multi tool for times when I needed X and X was not around. But she has no focus, not really. My time for her to be my go to girl for need X role might be over….

Before she could TR however, I would need to wrap up her 20th Von. I know she is real close less then 4 I think. But at our current rate of Vons that would be a month and I don’t think the wife will wait that long to TR. So I would either need to form some pug groups or keep my eyes open for them and jump in when able.

The other thought is I could return AS400 to bot form and get out of the drow shell that he really didn’t like. With 2 wiz past lives I could try moving him to a 18/2 sorc monk but I don’t love monk splashes on my arcane characters so that is a maybe but that is real hard to act like a support guy on a heavy baster with limited spell slots…

No I have the feeling that the right call is to go with my first gut feeling and just use the rogue. I should be able to help her get to 8 easy enough even on a junk alt and from there good times??? Maybe I could set up an bard/trapper/chest buffer on one of our alt accounts and start to level it and take it to 25 with us?

Idk, maybe the loot gods will send me a sign on the day it needs to happen.

Wish me luck,

<3s

When Sam Says:

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Last night was the DG’s normal Wednesday a Web run and an Abbot run. Well I think we are back to normal Abbot runs for a while… I will but this out there again if you are on Sarlona, play during the US evenings and want to try your hand at running the Abbot you need to get in the Defense channel. That could apply to any raid really and soon it will apply to LoB as well but for now Webs and Abbots.

Anyway post raids; Tobril asked me what I wanted to do as I did the raids he wanted to do. I said I was up for almost anything but I would be all for Xping on my Arty some, namely in the FR area, as it would be cool to be running the Web on an Alt that gives a shit about Web loot. Right now that is the Arty and not much else…Right now in most webs I end up taking Samius so I can contribute to DPS while herding the cat… aka Anna. Or Java to help heal while herding Anna. Think you might be starting to smell a theme, I herd Tobril and Anna and he herds the pug unless things start to go pear shaped and then I start to yell. Yep I am turning into Oncler. There are worse people to mimic I guess.

So I swap and join the remains of our Abbot run that is going to tag along with us. Want to say Lost Legion guys/gals and had a good time. I let everyone know that I am way under geared for epics but I am a helper and link my lvl 10 repeater that I am still using because I can’t find anything else as good. I know crazy but Icy burst/blaze/pure good plus rune arm/deadly/Int damage equals a ton of dps with out needed a lot of gear and really what good would it be to farm/build a Hellfire when the Needle is floating around…

Soon as we steam roll the eH quests, the topic of conversation moves to gear and rings. Before long everyone starts linking rings and I link a +6 con ring with a yellow slot filled with +100 sp augment. Yep rocking the gear.

More time passes and we are making good progress burning through the Lord of Dust chain.  In the end fight of the Servants of the Overlord I shrined off my Death Ward and asked Tobril for a new one when the caster end boss starts spamming me then harms. There was some fun poking about being a level 20 arty and needed a DW (not to forget the whole being a WF I had to remind them about the massive harm spamming). Guess I should have dug up a DW goggle clickly. While I am at it I need to get the Haste goggle clickly also and a shield clickly. Maybe some other clickies…

During the Spinner of Shadows quest Rest, makes a comment about being slow because he had to drink a silver flame pot and that I could have scrolled him a heal. I say that I could if I had a heal scroll and laughs start to roll. Tobril says something like “When Sam says his guy has no gear he means it!” and that stuck with me some because it is totally true. On double plus life TRs I worry about gear a lot. Just because you will be playing that alt so much longer to reach 20+ again, but a second life guy?? I just don’t much bother with grinding loot out unless he is sitting on a pile from his first life. The guy has been a bank alt for a long time and going from Wiz to arty has some over lap but less then one might think.

Anyway other then Loth, webbing and killing me in that last quest it was all-good we ran all 3 quests before people’s ship buffs wore out. I picked up a few shards still no repeater (no base or parts). Went from 1 rank in Draconic to the second level in it so very nice xp. I haven’t really worked out a gear list for my Arty. Right now I am just trying to get some options to get some options (:-)) and I am mentally building a trapping/all ranged/thrower/buffing build to pair up with the wife’s dps TR project that she wants to play.

Lolz and <3s

14 xp short

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After Monday’s exercise in tilt dodging and xp grinding I logged 13k xp short of 20 on Samiusbot. Don’t get me wrong Monday was a huge push like 200kish push, but when I hit 13 short I was mentally done even though I wanted to push through. So I hit an untouched explorer zone for me the Erie Forest. My slayer was about 130 for the Reaver’s hidey-hole… I thought the 400 kill slayer xp + the explores + hit a few of the rares would put me over no problem. I was rightish… but that is what happened last night not on Monday.

Monday I ran out summoned the Vamp got 12 kills and failed a destruction spell and died… Reupped my ship buffs and got back in the zone swapping out the Alchemist’s Pendant for what I meant to be my Silver Flame Talisman aka a death block item but turned out to be my Golden Cartouche aka not a death block item…  But I was able to quickly defeat the vamp who was still spawned from my first attempt to clear the zone.  Which I totally do on my second crack at it but I get no other rare spawns. Reset, which you need to do the old break and reform tick on this explorer btw, and repeat run one were right out of the box I fail a destruction spell fighting the vamp and die.

I start to see red as I put on a death block item, which in my rage I noticed that I had swapped around as I talked about above… But I was done the rage machine was running on all accounts.

Last night DDo started late.

First of all it was snowing again Tuesday morning, late in the year for snow but totally out of the blue. But this nice 2-4 days then snow/ice for a day or two then nice again thing is getting old.  Spring can just take hold already. Any way a friend of mine had an accident and needed my help in the morning and needed a place to wait out the day until his wife could rescue him, about 6 pm… It would have been rude to have logged on while he sat totally still as to avoid the dogs barking wrath.

Second of all as I said it was snowing so Monday night in the rain the family and I bundled up the green house to ready for the cold… again. And as I really love to do I went into the green house with snow and the wind blowing and just am amazed at how warm it is with very little light and no outside heat. It was about 25 degrees (f) warmer inside then out. And I found it very comfortable. Although the wife thought it cool.  So that took time.

So at about 7 I finally logged on and finished my runs in the forest. Hit the slayer mark and the vamp and the wagon train a few times and found myself 14 xp short of 20. Isn’t that always how it works….

Anyway I debated on running something WAY under level for that last tiny bit of xp. But instead the wife said just goes find a rare some place else and shut up! Unable to argue with her logic I saved some dwarfs from some dogs and became a hero just in time to realize I have 0 gear plans or play goals other then to have a main account arty ready to go… But I really enjoyed leveling it up for the most part. And I think I can come up with a gear list soon.

While my brain is doing that I also have a ton of work to do and I need to find another project to play while dualing with the wife’s dps alt she is gearing up for a TR at any moment….

Anyway back to work/planning/gear listing…

<3s

Oh and not that I think he reads this but if he does one of my younger brothers turned 30 yesterday and while I knew it was yesterday on Monday (thank you Facebook the exact date always escapes me..) I got swamped at work and helping a friend and then getting that last little bit of xp it slipped my mind. So happy belated Bday little bro. I think this will be a banner year for us all.

Picture Time – Apr 23

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I keep saying one of these days I will post some of my in game screen shots and/or send in an entry to the SS of the week contest. I have 56 tp right now so i could use the points. But i am super lazy so odds are I will just post them here…

 

Doing the one under water quest, some times the water breaks and you can get clear pictures. When it happened to me i didn’t want to leave the zone it was sooooo smexy.

 

Here is another one…. Fully operational battle ball!

 

Think this was early in Samiusbot’s Arty life. Think i want to call this “Fuck you i am alive!” I did live by the way. And it was amazing!

 

Did you know you can stand on the crystals in Madstone? Cause you can dance on them if you can land on them…

 

Ever been a water ele in Caught in the Web? You get this amazing prism effect on some of the web ramps because of the lighting…

 

So the other day we were Reclaiming the Rift and it bugged out on us. I took a few pictures while we waited for a DM to show up and say he couldn’t help.

Fire ele, Javabot found a nice warm pool of lava to “chill” while he waited…

 

Who has a massive pink ball?

 

Dude i think your ball is smoking….

 

One more for today….

Happy Earth Day?

 

Gurobo Farm Update Apr 22

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In light of today being Earth Day I think I will do another Gurobo farm update with some pictures and what not. But first I want to add a little something to my wish/Bday want list, a sos solar oven.

A few months back I got all saving energy crazy. I tried to make my own solar food dehydrator which got a little out of my skill set at the time and dropped that project for now. But at the same time I got a little crazy for solar cooking. I made myself one of the cardboard/foil ones that I haven’t really tested out yet but I will try and use it one of these clear weekends.  But what I thing I need is this guy: SOS solar oven.

I have been watching lots of videos on cooking with solar and everyone seems to really love this guy. So lets all just send my wife some cash to get it for me. 🙂

Okay lets look at some pictures.

Tray 1 2 tomatoes, a bell peper, lettuce, mint and some other herb…

Want to say Tray one is looking good. But this tray seems to be going a little slower then tray 2.

Tray 2, lettuce and spinach

We added some romaine this weekend and you can see in the very top left one guy hanging out on his own flanked by a salad ready to go… I think i will try and go out and prep a some greens for salads with dinner this week.

Tray 3, cucumber, romaine and more herbs.

Here is the rest of the romaine we added this weekend along with my cucumbers that i started from seeds and a single plant i bought at the store this weekend as they are so little i am afraid mine from seeds are not going to make it..

Strawberries and Bee catchers!

Last year we bought these pre made hanging baskets of strawberries and i just kept eating them right off the basket. This year we decided to get even more but so far we have only found 2, but i have room for more. 🙂 Also we have added flowers. One of the issues with a green house can be the lack of bees. So in hopes of getting some of the little guys to pop in from time to time we added a few hanging baskets. This one is Red and yellow in honor of my ❤ for Iron man.

 

More flowers!

 

These guys round out my flower needs. I have added the frame of a covered swing that a wind storm we had at last week just destroyed. Lets me hang things in the middle of the Green house and lets the  wife reach them for watering. I also moved the tomatoes on the ground to sit under these so they will get some shade durning the heat of the day to help prevent sunburn.

Tomatoes!

Speaking of the vile evil things here are the other tomato plants, they are about 6-8  inches taller then when we planted them. So they are growing strong.

You know what is on the left or you should by now but the right is a watermelon.

This is my first watermelon. I am not 100% how it will do so it gets its own pot and a ton of vermiculite mixed into its soil to help keep it watered so we don’t end up over watering… I have big plans to make square melons. :0

Thinking Christmas already!

Something we never really thought about was growing a permeant inside Christmas tree. But we are going to try. It was the wife’s idea. And it happens that it will be all kinds of useful. This guy shouldn’t get much bigger then 4-5 foot tall. But i can use its pines for tea, it has editable pine nuts when larger and in a pinch i think you can even eat the bark… Why do we only have one?

Grapes!

We started training these guys to crawl the fence. Hope they do well. Lots of firsts this year.

And finally we also added a composting bin to the yard. I didn’t take a photo as it is more or less a box with holes in the bottom and side doors with a hinged top. Think everyone can use your imagination but i am going to make someone here at work very happy  as he bagges his grass clippings and i am going to go and steal them for my bin. 🙂 Going to call that win win.

 

Well for a post that is most images this has taken way to long and i have a pile of work to put off… I mean knock out.

<3s

 

Elf Samius?

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Okay before you all revolt with a title like Elf Samius I just want you to know while I am debating on a race change… spoiler I don’t think I will. I do want to talk about my reasons and my logic behind it.

I said reasons but really there is just one for a race change on my wiz, PRR. I have gotten lucky enough to be in on some good groups for a lot of the EE Giant Hold quests and I have noticed a personal weakness by my lack of PRR. Now I use a shield so I get like 10 PRR. Weeeee! Oh boy, I take like 5% less damage. When something hits me for 300+ after my 10 DR and 5% PRR meaning I still need to heal real fast. Even twisting in Cocoon and slotting in the 114 devotion on my shield I am still running super low and having to hope to not get hit again while firing off a heal scroll. I can’t make 300+ dc checks to keep the spell if I get hit.

To add PRR I could swap into armor like the E Blue dragon hide or Scale. The scale would be a little more PRR over the hide and has a skin I like over the hide but brings with it an ASF of 25%. So if we slot -15% ASF augment gem I would still have to deal with 10%…. Enter the Elf/Helf as options as they can reduce ASF with enchantments points.

But I would lose the Evasion that makes the 18/2 rogue splash so good, even if right now my Reflex save is only in the mid 40s which Tobril says is crap in EEs atm…

Also looking at the DDowiki’s Enhancement Alpha Page  run down, I don’t want to loose all the HPs from the fat Halfling race post changes…  Wonder if I can splash in a bard level and take warchanter for some ASF reduction…

No at least until the enchantment pass I think I will just stay Fat Halfling, use the hide armor and pick an armor skin that doesn’t suck. 🙂

Oh one last thing assuming I did the math right… with my bab being like 10 the non bab buffed PRR for Hide is 7 and the Scale is 11… Buff that with a Tenser’s or Divine Power (clickies) and the difference is a little wider 12 vs 18 but still not worth loosing evasion.

Scale 10 + 14 + 11 = or about 82% damage taken – evasion

(DP) 10 + 14 + 18 = 42 = about 77%

Hide 10 + 14 + 7 = or about 83% damage taken keep evasion

(DP) 10+ 14+11 = 82%

Now if I can just get one of those +3 Int items so I can free up my body slot…

<3s

Shiradi Stance + Animal Form Spells, NO?

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So I have been really enjoying my Main Samius – Am(evoc)Wiz/rog in Shiradi with the different stances running. And I was talking with Tobril on Teamspeak about why I like the Rainbow/Double Rainbow line.

Then we finished up the raid we were running and I swapped to Javabot to get a little xp who happens to be a rank short of taking double rainbow at the start of our screwing off and after a few runs has the points to double up. I was so excited to see how this stance would boost Java’s Dps, as you all know he is a winter wolf melee style DC based druid so he could use a little boost to push him over into the big boy club…

But a few more quests looking for any rainbow procs and I saw none…

I could cast like an ice storm or an earthquake and see the occasional proc but nothing from the any of my wolf attack spells? That seems wrong to me.

They are offensive spells, they cost SP, use spell slots can’t be cast in anti-magic zones. WFT?

So I am turning in a bug report. And I will ask any of you that might also be rocking animal form druids to do the same. This seems wrong to me and needs to be changed.

Cookie Crisp!

<3s