Monthly Archives: May 2013

My Prep List, May 17, 2013

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Everyone once and I while I get on my soapbox and talk about my prepping, what I am doing and or why you might want to do some prepping. And it is that time again. Below is some of my to-do list and the why should be fairly easy to see right now take a look at the BS that is going on in the world today.

Things I need to do.

Put a few plans to keep the green house cool in the summer heat in place. Even with the cross breeze and the box fan we are having 95+ afternoons already in the green house.

Get the Aquaponics in and running. Right now I am hopping for rain so I can use rainwater to fill the fish tank. I have plumbed the rain catch to the fish tank via a garden hose that I can add or remove in just a few mins. So water changes wont be an issue in the future. But that means I need some water first…

Adjust the shelves in the Shelfreliance, turns out that I use a lot of canned meat like chicken and crabmeat. Right now the crab is in the Shelfreliance but the chicken is just sitting on top. Need to get them in the rotation. We also have gotten a lot of crap out of the family diet and those canned goods can go to make room for better-canned goods or things we can ourselves. See next item.

Learn to can myself AND get some canning supplies. If we stay on track in the garden (and I am hopeful) the wife and I will have our best year ever. Meaning we will have a ton of left overs to store for the year, ergo canning, freezing or dehydration time. Honestly if I am going to use frozen veggies I might as just stock up on cleaned chopped flash frozen veggies from the store. But if I can make my own pickles from my Orca or keep things in a mini root cellar then I am winning.

Start planning on the cold weather crops and how to keep them growing all winter long.

Well that seems like a fine list for today. I will end with some photos taken during my lunch break watering the garden.

<3s

Trays 1-4 and Qywnn

The Backside of the tomato plants.

Salad waiting on the left and look at my watermelon go! (right)

One of the Strawberries baskets.

Front side of the tomatoes.

Pumpkin…

One of now 6 Grape Plants. Count down until wine making classes?

Change in Plans, Time to Make some NEW Decisions….

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Due to a schedule conflict and a number of people sending in messages saying (xp weekend should be this week) plans are shifted to TR Train this weekend, aka no time for double TR Doctor Jones!

*While Writing Update*
DDO Bonus Days brings you +15% Heroic and Epic XP, now through Wednesday, May 22nd! #DDO #TonsofXP

Glad we (you and I) talked a few things out with my double TR plan and thanks to everyone that sent in your XP weekend guess is off.

So today I am trying to decide on a few things, like what build do I want to land on and how can I turn salvage the TR train if I am wrong now and right before and the bonus xp weekend is in fact in the following weekend… (Which we now know the 17th starts the xp weekend)

So Tonight I will TR/ first level gear up Java and gear layout for levels 2-6, there is not a lot of gear changes between 6 and 8. More or less prep the weapon upgrades and basic gear swaps like level 5 gear and low level trap stuffs.

So for build this life, could say “F it” and do another druid life, but we talked though all that and I think I will stick to the plan of trying the Juggernaut build for a while.

Which means I need to pick a version of the build I think I will like the most, the Pally splash or the Ranger splash.

Pally = Higher saves with less work
Ranger = More burst dps and sprint boost…. Sprint boost….

Okay that was not that hard. Sprint Boost…. Sorry I’m back. Lets copy the planed build and get a forum link if you haven’t seen it already.

Juggernaut Ranger
Level 20 Lawful Neutral Warforged Male
(2 Monk \ 2 Ranger \ 16 Artificer)

Strength 16 25
Dexterity 15 20
Constitution 17 23
Intelligence 13 18
Wisdom 11 16
Charisma 6 10

Level 1 (Artificer)
Feat: (Selected) Point Blank Shot

Level 2 (Monk)
Feat: (Monk Bonus) Power Attack
Level 3 (Monk)
Feat: (Selected) Cleave
Feat: (Monk Bonus) Toughness

Level 4 (Artificer)

Level 5 (Ranger)
Feat: (Favored Enemy) Favored Enemy: Evil Outsider
Level 6 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Great Cleave

Level 7 (Artificer)
Level 8 (Artificer)
Feat: (Artificer Bonus) Quicken Spell
Level 9 (Artificer)
Feat: (Selected) Manyshot
Level 10 (Artificer)
Level 11 (Artificer)
Level 12 (Artificer)
Feat: (Artificer Bonus) Improved Critical: Ranged Weapons
Feat: (Selected) Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons (Or Bludgeoning)
Level 13 (Artificer)
Level 14 (Artificer)
Level 15 (Artificer)
Feat: (Selected) Mithral Body
Level 16 (Artificer)
Feat: (Artificer Bonus) Precise Shot
Level 17 (Artificer)
Level 18 (Artificer)
Feat: (Selected) Precision
Level 19 (Artificer)
Level 20 (Artificer)
Feat: (Artificer Bonus) Improved Precise Shot

Thinking about what gear Java already has and I think I will lean more towards the un-centered style but I will need to look at what Bow/XBows at his disposable because I don’t think he has any…

Well think that’s a plan, unless I decide when TRing tonight to do druid at the last sec… Could happen.

<3s

Time to Man Up and Make the Call

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All of you know I have been caption wibbly wobbly on this TR proposal that Tobril and I are going to go for to do a double TR in a weekend. To work the True Heart of Wood timer and fit in the playtime in our schedule this means we have to TR tonight! But I don’t have a plan……

But Tobril is on board and has a rough plan so I need to shit or get off the pot real fast and being that I put the idea in his head I feel responsible and need to make this happen.

So lets make a plan, starting with goals and wants.

I want to do this on Javabot. He is working his way to completionist and I want him to make it as long as I am enjoying his builds on the way. Him making completionist is not like Samius getting it. It is a good long term goal not something that I want to get to as soon as I can stand it. That said I really like him as a druid, right now.

Since this first live is mostly skipping the live I should get something out of the way that I don’t enjoy playing like barb or sorc… And I do like the Druid and I wonder if I can make 9/10 levels of druid work like I could make 9 levels of monk work, aka carry the build. Which I think it will.

So lets just put this bonus life in the nasty life pile but make a quick list of the classes I don’t enjoy playing and plan to do one of them.

Now the question is do I go back to druid or do I pick another class? I am not ready to move away from the druid life and I think that is my holdup but right now it seems like a waist not to go for the Arty (Jug) live before the Devs do something to kill the build. Doing an arty life also gives me a lot of bank for the buck on future TR lives with the UMD bonus….

Lets say I stick to this plan of ending up as a Jug, if I don’t like it guess I can TR again and solo back to Druid easy enough. I mostly soloed it to 20 the first go around after all. So what life would be the best bang for the buck on the Jug? My personal don’t enjoy list is Sorc, barb, ranger and to a lesser extent bard. Of that list I think the Jug build would get more bang from the +2 damage from ranged. I could/would have very similar burst ranged DPS as my pure 20 has, slightly better even, between Endless and Manyshot I might never swap to melee. Okay I would but come on…

So that is the plan I guess. 10/10 Druid/Ranger for this junk life and one of the 2 main Jug builds next life.

Guess it is a plan if I chicken out and go back to Druid right away the extra resists will be some help even if the ranged damage is mostly wasted.

If I am not thinking of something please let me know.

<3s

PS, Anyone that is offended by the title… Man up. J Aka know that I ❤ you and I only mostly a sexist pig.

 

Ideal Dog Shield…

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As an animal form dps/caster hybrid Javabot relies on a shield unlike most of my other builds. For example for Samius I use the EE Skyvault primarily for its really solid slotting, red, purple and a blue or 114 force/healing/more PRR, so to fill out key spell power amounts.  Samyus my tank, who is chilling, still is using the EE Bastion. Which may or may not be the right shield for a tanky build. It mostly comes down to what do you want to do? I will not be sidetracked! Today is about my druid and his shield.

Java has been using a lvl 15 Wall of Wood, aka the Wow. It is really good at level but has been out classed for a while now. Already having a 30% heal Amp from a claw set, he has been looking for something other then the EE WoW to track down.

And I have been looking for a lvl 22 Wow, 20% vs 30% if a little less devotion then a larger version but Shield bashing and +5 nat armor is not really needed in this build…

So what did I need in a shield for Java?

MORE DPS and MORE HEALS!

With a little reading/asking around I learned that if you make a LoB shield crystal the metal type does change and allows a druid to use it with out breaking oath. So what to do… How to do it?

Two important questions “So what to do… How to do it?” as I didn’t get into the House C raids when they first came out as I was on my TR Train with Samius at the time.

So looking at the list both Stunning/Seeker 10 are possible options for a non-bashing melee shield.  And then for the second tear Doublestrike is a standout again with the idea that bashing is not going to be happening.

If you could mix and match Martial and Mystical effects between tears I could make something like a seeker 10 (F-Mar)/ Sup Lighting Lore (A – Mys)/ Greater Evocation (F – Mys) shield and have a fairly tight shield. A little dps and a little casting.

But you can’t (or at least I have been told you can’t) so I have mad a all Martial shield as the Seeker/Dstrike/red slot is too good to pass up.

On Sunday our channel group got me the last binding shards I needed to finish my tear 2. Other then loosing 10% amp I am super pleased. I think next weekend (if I am lucky) I will gather all the mats I need to make it tear 3 when I am ready I can take it to tear 3. Although I am not in a hurry as I think I will be doing a few TRs on Java real soon so having it at level 18 is not the worse place for it. The potency on my belt is currently out doing the shield devotion anyway so win win.

If you have an animal fighting druid, what is your weapon setup?

<3s

 

The Plan and the ALTERNET PLAN

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Like I said yesterday Otto’s boxes are in the store. I teamed up with the wife to buy Tps a few weeks back because I heard that they might be back soon and she wanted to have a pile of points for her latest TR project. I wanted some Boxes so moving up to a much larger package seemed like the right call.

So now I am siting on some Otto’s boxes…. And as I have said there is some thought as to when the next XP weekend is going to be scheduled. My guess is over the Memorial day holiday weekend.  So people are getting ready for a TR blitz to 8 and then a good stoning using the bonus xp from the weekend, some heavy pot use, vp and boat we plan to be near cap if not at cap by weekends end.

I have a lot characters that could use such a TR to knock out a fast life. Javabot is a standout in my mind, but I really like him as a druid and I am not sure if I am ready for him to move on to something else…but a quick swap to a Juggernaut build is not out of the question.

Fire up the ALTERNET PLAN

I TR Java after this weekend putting my Rog on the back burner for a few nights and power level Java to 8 giving me at least a week before the start of my projected TR weekend. Then the first night of the XP weekend Stone and power to 20 and TR again to power threw with everyone else…

This plan is quite a gamble, I feel the fool trying to form a plan around a bonus weekend that I am guessing will happen and when. But if I don’t then whatever I do decide on I need to be happy with playing for a while as I don’t plan to rock another 3x TR to epics alone for awhile.

So lets assume for a min that my weekend gamble is right and we will have my theorized XP weekend, what do I do? Java’s plan was to work towards completionest as I jump from build to build. I never wanted to play the same build again until I am rocking completionest but I think Java is really suited to the Druid frame and play style.  So is the alt plan; something useful for druids then return to being a druid???? If so, what is best for a druid other then more druid lives? Because more druid lives does not get him any closer to completionest…

I don’t know what is best. I could knock out a barb, fighter or Sorc life and then jump into a Jug build and chill in that build for awhile (sure a Jug would be a good fix for a while) and then when I am tired of being a Jug I would be 2 lives closer to completionest… Or I could just do back to back Druid lives and be happy with +4 more to all stats on my summons/pets with the only losses being favor and raid counters. Which I don’t think I care about at the moment.

Lots to think about in the next few days because timing will be important. I guess there is also plan C… I have a few other guys that need the love. Grumble! Too many options and I need to decide real soon or I will miss my window.

<3s

Stabbing you in your Guts and Picking your Pocket

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So with my Arty at 25 and working on gear, Samius rocking EEs as needed and Javabot working on an item or two, I am mostly in get stuff mode. Except on Mon,Tues, Thrus and Fri days on those days I am all about sticking bitches with pointy things, aka leveling my rogue with the wife’s DPS character.  I will say right off the bat I am loving playing this rogue, but he is level 10 and I can see some weaknesses that I might need to address soon… some how.

Why do I bring it up? Good question. The DG/British Invasion people are debating a TR Weekend now that Otto’s boxes are in the mix again for a fast return to epics (assuming a xp weekend over Memorial Day Weekend). And there are many possible TRs that need to happen or are slotted for characters that want a TR. One of which is one of our group’s assassin rogues. The person I went to when I was planning my Rogue build and she expressed interest in the ins and outs of my build ideas so I thought why not do a little how its working.

So BUILD REVIEW TIME!

I am more or less on the build plan for Mcplunderer which can be seen here.

You do need to do a feat order swap from what I have listed and take Point Blank Shot @ 2 using the fighter bonus feat and wait for Toughness until level 3. I have to say it is fairly amazing to play so far. Every time something comes at me and I bluff them I say, “It wasn’t me!” as I start to stab them for big sneak attack numbers. When the wife looks at me like I am nuts I claim “role playing.”

As for actual game play, I will say it is strange to be on a melee with a maxed out Int and no power attack so damage on guys with out dealing Sneak attack sucks, but I am playing the long game on this one. Even so using I am rocking the Threnalian weapons and not doing too bad. I need to take a look and see if there is a worth wild upgrade out their soon to go farm up…

Things I would change put HP/fort gear higher on the gear list. The wife’s evasion pally has WAY more Hp and better saves and she is using blue slots for PRR and Fort and is wearing all the necessary HP gear. And she seems very stable. While a lot of the time I need to break off and pot/wand/scroll repeat until I can turn and clean up my trash.  Guess I am trying to say I know what Tobril was saying back when he was working on his Rog (that didn’t make it much past 10) about feeling like a glass cannon. Then again I seem to do okay at leveling glass cannons, I had lots of Wizards in my stable at one time…

I think at 14 things will be a lot tighter some gear comes on line then like Black dragon armor and Tome of legends weapons and that will be a huge boost. Think I even have an old Treason some place… Maybe. If I do I can treat it like a mini- Epic Midnights Greetings until 20 rolls around.

Well good enough for now. More on trying to take some advantage of the Otto’s boxes later.

<3s

Thank You DDo and Family

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So yesterday I think I learned the meaning of shit rolls down hill as my supervisor pulled me into his office for our weekly meeting let me know that we are finally expanding our web department and then proceeded to tear me a new asshole. The whole time he kept saying things that seemed to imply that he had a bit of an ass chewing. I have the feeling there was some why do you need more staff the staff you have hasn’t rolled anything big out under your watch… His reply should have been mine my staff of 1? He is doing 40 little things AND trying to make progress on this big project….

Anyway needless to say that encounter put me in a foul mood and making me wonder if I need to start looking at other options…. I have been here for, well I need to look but I think the 11th will be 5 years. Maybe that is too long in modern times…

Thankfully my wife made dinner and tried to cheer me up as we worked on our TRs that we are doing on the side, aka my rogue and her new evasion dps pally. Don’t want to say that it took my mind right off of things. But it helped a ton and this morning no signs of going postal. That is a joke btw…

Anyway progress, we lvl 9 with or almost having xp for 10. I am dual wielding the long sword/dagger from Threnal and the dps is fair if not great, unless I don’t have the agro and then boom! So many sneak attack dice….

Took me awhile to remember the ends and outs of this build think I need to reread my post explaining it to myself because I have the feeling that I am missing a little bit still…

Anyway I just wanted to say even though DDo and/or my family can/was pissed me off in the past and I am sure they will again; they do an amazing job of cheering me up when they feel like it. My wife even died saving me from bleeding out when I tried to get though a trap to get to the box. Her evasion is powered by more then 10 more points of dex then mine, but 1s happen. But her CLWs took me to 4 so I could disable the trap and take her stone to the shrine. She was “mad” but I think it was all planed on her part…

<3s

The Chicken T

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If you follow me on twitter you know that there was a chicken/dogs encounter of the bloody kind. Basically one of the roosters got out of the extended run the wife and I have been working on and when the wife when to check on the greenhouse and naturally the dogs went along. Now we have dog tested the new run before yesterday so I was not worried about the dogs getting in but I didn’t think about a chicken getting out….

From what I was told there was a frantic yard chase until the poor little guy got pinned in a corner where the wife was able to save him. During the chase the dogs (older puppies? Maybe they just hit 2 years old last week) managed to snag some tail feathers and ripped them out and along with those feathers a small patch of skin less then the area of half a dime. If that even. I mean tiny little patch of skin.

Being the caring woman my wife is she put the wounded cock in the coop with the rest and shut down the extended run until we could fix the fault, which we did last night.

What she didn’t notice was he was bleeding just the slightest amount. Now what some of you might not know, chickens will peck at anything that is the color red. It is their peck trigger. That is why the water/food dishes are red in the tray area. So this tiny speck of blood that we over looked was not missed by the other chickens and they started pecking at his wound. At lunch it was not bad but not healing and we ended up separating him from the rest of the flock which he really did not like. Did you know that chickens are social animals? And this guy really made me worry that he would end up hurting himself trying to get back. After all he was now hurt, scared and alone… I would be a little more then that, I would be pissed off it was me and not that chicken…

Returning to work, I let my brain start to turn on this problem. Work doesn’t pay me enough to use my whole brain anyway.. The first option I thought of was ducktape! It can fix anything, and is meant to tape ducks… How much different is a chicken vs a duck?  Then I started thinking that I didn’t want to pull the tape free in a week or two and cause even more issues…. Then I remembered I read some woman that makes chicken diapers from bandanas so her chickens can go in her house… My brain screamed bandana!

A white bandana tied like below around the chicken would keep the his red covered but leave his anus free so to not create an infection from his own crap…

Gangsta chicken! Cluck Cluck!

 

Or that was the idea anyway. On the drive home it accured to me I have a growing boy that should have some old white tees that he can’t wear any more and snip snip later I had a square cut and fitted to the bird. But letting him run for a min showed that was not going to work… Not only did he peck at the tee because it was rubing against his skin, but as he ran it twisted because I didn’t want to tie it too tight.

A little more thought and some more cutting I made something that looked a lot like the letter T but with a thick trunk… Like this:

Saved by the letters T and A and the number 42!

I looped the to thinner part of the T under his wings and tide them together behind his back and then used a hair clip to keep the back of the shirt down so it can’t flip up and expose his wounded backside.

After some mild pecking at the knot he seemed settled and adding him back to his flock caused some mild peeking at the hair clip as it is kinda shiny but no more back damage. We did need to trim some wing feathers to remove some dried blood but now he is as white as the rest of the Leghorns.

We (the wife and I) added a permanent chicken wire top to the new run and life seems to be good for the chickens. We used the new addition to move said chicken’s coop last night and then left the run open all night. This morning when I looked in on them, all 8 were happily spread out over their original run and the new addition.

Now to patent my chicken T idea, and make MILLONS!!!!!!!

<3s

PSA and More

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Lets kick things off with a little PSA; do not do any TR (lesser/greater/True) with gear equipped on a pet. Over the weekend I lessered Samiusbot to clean up and straighten out some feats and when I was equipping and fixing hot bars I noticed that a Docent of Defiance I had on my Dog had gone missing. After an extremely detailed search I called a DM. After about 20 secs reading my OG complaint I got a message more or less saying “ You shouldn’t TR with gear equipped on pets, we don’t track loot so we can’t respawn your item. Anything else I can do for you?” And he was more or less gone….

Thing is I have lessered and TRed many times and while I have lost gear I have never lost gear from a pet before. And I didn’t loose my collar this time from the tone of the DM txt I should have lost everything… Idk. As soon as I get this posted I will fill out a ticket and see if someone beyond a DM can help.

Funny thing is not 3 hours before I was talking to the brits about how I thought about upgrading to a bigger docent for my dog then it goes and intimates a massive group of mobs and just don’t care because the DoD procs and its life is good.

Kinda wish I had now… Oh well I put in a ticket and will see what the support center says about it….

So to the More part of things…. I Lessered Samiusbot to try and clean up my feat list. I wanted something like this:

  •  1          empower
  • 3          maximize
  • 6          Quicken
  • 9          WIx past life or bow str…
  • 12       Toughness
  • 15       rapid shot
  • 18       manyshot
  • 21       insightful relfexes
  • 24       combat archery
  • 4          precise
  • 8          point blank shot
  • 12       Imp Precise
  • 16       imp Crit Ranged
  • 20       mithral body

The order was not real important and that is more or less what I took other then at 18 I had to choose between Quciken and Bow Str and I took Quicken and then at 20 for my last bonus feat I had to pick something not Bow Str… So I am missing out on like 20ish points of Dps per shot atm… Damn it!

I had an list where I lost mithral body and bow Str and took Shuriken and Shuriken Expertise. And here is why. If this guy goes all ranged (aka the plan) then I want as many ranged attacks per min as possible, right? And SE + Whirling Wrist is about as many attacks as one can get with a ranged weapon assuming a better then 30 dex…

I had hoped that I could use insightful Strike to use my int for damage but that wont work. Thanks Jerry for the catch.

But still an Alchemical Shuriken is 2[d2] + 1[w] for combat archery and 1[w] for Deadly which makes the damage is still laughable but when you add run arm for 2d6 to 2d10 and you work up the elemental binding you get a hell of a weapon. That according to what I have been reading is close to manyshot all the time… Plus burst dps of Endless Fusillade/Manyshot with Shirdi procs all the time. Hell if I can get close to the number of Shirdi procs Samius gets spamming all those force spells with out the SP cost and limitations on Mobs being immune to MM and lower then 4th level spells then I could have a real different looking powerhouse.

Mark my words someone will be talking up this or something real close to this real soon.  Maybe on one of those Juggernaut like builds where the feats are not that fair out of the box… IDK… Maybe I will TR one of my guys into a Jug and try it myself anyway.. I just have a hard time not being 20 arty if I am taking more then 1 arty level…

Well <3s