Monthly Archives: June 2013

Want to be a Better Player?

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This is the single best thing you can do to improve your DDo play skillz. DEVELOP WASD skills.

DDo has a fairly amazing combat system, by far the most interactive of any game I have ever played online. And might rival more then a few offline console games.

Build matters a lot less then your ability to not be where the damage is when it comes staying alive and the best players I have ever seen almost never stop watching their positioning. They are always staying ahead of the where the damage is while keeping a high DPS level.

This was very apparent to me last night when the wife and I were rocking Vale quests on our TRs mainly in Running with the Devils and not taking massive amounts of light damage. 150 points a ray btw… or as I like to call them lazer death rayz!

Not that there weren’t any deaths, (although we cleared to and through the tunnels really well and thought we were in amazing shape until the first chest area) with just the 2 of us and our healers, because there was a few deaths. But there were a lot fewer deaths (ie 0) when we could keep moving to manually dodge those damn Lazerz. When we had room to maneuver we were able to stay ahead of things, in places were the numbers were overwhelming and we had less room to keep moving is where we choked.

So what I am saying is, if you are rocking a solid build and you are still struggling keep a eye out for those people that seem to excel and watch them move and I bet you will see them dancing around the screen with those WASD skills.

<3s

Inbox: Advice for Bobby pt 1

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I have always said I am happy to throw my tips into the ring on almost any topic, and then I got a real whopper in the old mail inbox this morning. It is so big I can’t get to all of it today, which is good as that allows me more time to mull some answers over but I think I can shoot from the hip at a few parts.

A little back history with out copying and pasting parts of the email and the things that I think are important.

The writer of this email (hence forth Bobby) started playing DDo on the recommendation of a friend.
Bobby’s Friend is now his guild leader.
Said Guild leader happens to be many time zones separated from Bobby.
Guild is very small and not super active when Bobby is on.
Guild leader has alts in another guild and is fairly active on those alts.
I don’t think Bobby is allowed in this other guild due to it being a local guild.
Joining said guild wouldn’t help a lot anyway as most of those player are separated by many time zones like the guild leader.
Bobby has reached a DDo plateau and wants to reach higher levels but is unsure how to proceed as well as is worried that this guild doesn’t have the structure to support him on his desired path.

Questions I want to try and answer today:
How does one grow in DDo?
How can you tell if it is time to leave a guild?
How does one leave a guild, (with out a lot of hurt feelings)?

How does one grow in DDo? To me one grows in any field when they set measurable goals and works towards those goals. Ideally once reaching or realizing those goals are no longer achievable or desirable you set new ones and that process repeats.

So that was a really long line of crap. I mean what does that mean? How does that even relate to Bobby’s situation? Something I didn’t share was a short list of goals that Bobby sent in, design builds, learning/teaching and to BE better (I assume at playing DDo). To me all three of those things are very measurable goals.

Design a Build, this is not hard, grab the planner and get to work. Feel free to take one of the ideas that I have throw out over the years and build something. Not every build will be good. Hell if you’re lucky 1 out of 10 will be worth wild after the vale. Think I am at like 1 for 20… Build one try it, take what you learned, tweak it and then try again. As long as you are not trying to do all your testing on your main via TRs I think you will be okay. I think the Iconics have real potential in this regard, as throw away build concepts.

Teach/Learn, again this is not hard. Pick a quest you think you know well or want to know better and learn it via looking for a guide/s in the form of walkthroughs/pug/forum/channels then once you are a master of that quest (ideally something like Tempest spine simi unloved by the masses) then start throwing up teaching runs where you are the teacher. Raids are always a good place to start. There are always new players that want to learn the ropes and in need of a few good vets to help.

Lets jump to Guild talk… It is tough; I have never left a guild. Tobril and I founded the DG and even when we butt heads we have worked things out and we have each had different aspects of guild leadership that we have gone through. But I can tell you this like in most relationships being forward and honest with the other person is often the best way.

The other day Tobril was being a little whiny (think he had the on call phone) but he was motivated to do things and I was a little apathetic but trying to be a helper, we wanted to run some challenges for the Arty Cannith ring. I was moving a little slow, plus I remembered from the other day doing the same there was some things we talked about doing, like remembering a hire to heal kobolds and grabbing my Rodic’s wand for boosting hires/pets. And we had a little moment of hey your pissing me off, well good because you’re pissing me off. But when he realized that even though it seemed like I was dragging my feet I was being a team player his mood changed and my mood changed because I cleared my chest and because his mood changed and we had a good hour or two of running challenges.

So I say first off if you’re not putting it all out there then that is on you. If your friend blows up then that is on him. But I think real friends will see that you are trying to be upfront and support you as long as you give them the chance.

That said there is two ways to leave a guild, slowly and all at once. I recommend slowly, but by that I don’t mean leave one bank alt in that remains on the active list with out giving anything back to the guild. I mean either set up a channel or use your friend’s list to keep in touch and be willing to make time to play with your former guildies or if you want to keep some alts in be sure to play those alts from time to time so not to be a leach. I know from being part of a guild leadership guild goals are always shifting but there is nothing more aggravating then a player that is active but doesn’t play guild alts and ends up dragging the guild down. You just don’t know what to do with those players.

How to find a new guild? That will need to wait for another post.

<3s

The Joys of Pugging: Keavaa

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I know lots of people are going to read this and call me an elitist or a snob and I am cool with that even though I wouldn’t call myself an elitist. I try at least every other day to read all the DDo related blogs. Can’t really say you have a thumb on things if you don’t at least read what others are putting out. But today I hit Keavaa’s blog and there is a ranty post about other people playing their characters as they want…

I remember this place. Back before F2P, before I became a guild/channel/shortman player back when I wanted to trust that everyone was as good or better at DDo then I am (most days as good as me is really not that hard people).

But something happened and I remember the moment happened after the 4-5 day in a row of pugging out and failing running the Hound raid. Before this cold streak the DG could pug out like 8 slots and win every time. Hell I even formed the groups back then. There were many Dinner at Harry shrouds or Free Waffles raids up lead by Tobril or myself. Hell even the wife got on mic and lead pugs from time to time.

But something about those 3 or 4 fails left a taste in my mouth that I can only describe as fowl and I half swore off pugs right then. It took the Brits wanting to learn the Hound raid for my Clr with 18 completions to get to 20.

Think a large part of my issue was I expected others to either have or do what I thought they should. If they are a divine class I expected them to be able to heal and use scrolls to extend their SP pool or they needed to pony up for pots.

Back then extend was good and casting Haste and Rage was worth wild. Now extend is worthless and I only cast those spells on request and often I only have one or the other as often my spell slots are tight.

However, one of my most prep spells is knock, well if I am not on a skilled splashed alt anyway. But again I can’t assume that anyone has anything any more. I have TRed so many times I have had lives where I didn’t scribe any scroll that was not found in a chest unless I happened to get scribing kits as loot and only then because I didn’t want to waist them. Even now Samius has lots of missing spells in from his list because I might TR him again some time.

Guess, my point is everyone tends to suck sometimes. I wrote about me not having any gear while leveling up my Arty. That meant no heal scrolls or even a Death Ward clickly (which is fairly standard gear). And I have lost out on chests because the rogue in the quest didn’t carry tools. And Tobril and I often find each other at odds as I don’t keep him hasted at all times, hence part of the reason he went Juggernaut, guess what he is not super happy with the Jugg in part because he is spending time buffing everyone all the time, ask for an armor of speed for the 14th time in a quest and see what happens. 🙂

The only sure fire way to know that the group you are in is really prepared is to solo/guild and make damn sure you are on the ball. Me and mine have learned to build more and more self-reliant builds so more and more slots in pugs are warm bodies for pulling on chests.

Yep I might be a little elitist, but I am also a realist.

<3s

Asking for Advice

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I love giving advice, like so many people I can easily see solutions for others even when my own path is unclear… It is a gift. And one I like to use, for example you can ask me almost anything and I will be happy to set you on your course. And your welcome to follow my advice or not but don’t get unhappy if my advice is not the advice you were hopping I would give, I am not here to be your yes man.

I was enjoying one of my new favorite podcasts CoopCast over at chickenthistlefarm.com and they went into a bit of a terror about how some people ask for their advice and becoming unhappy that what they offered was not what the askers wanted to hear. That rang true to me. I can be your yes man if you like but don’t pose your question in the form of actually wanting help.

I bring this up because I felt like I was getting a little of that I wanted a yes man attitude the other day from a friend.

I was asked if it would be a good idea to TR his main (3pally lives and a clr live) so he could relearn the game after a long break? He has found a real live friend to newb up with from 1 until (?). And like a lot of people he is all about his main. A sentiment, which I totally understand by the way, Samius and I have a similar bond. But this player (Phlor) has a strange history that I feel discourages me from saying do it.

He is not much of an XP farmer thanks to his original ddo guild. According to him they where very slow paced and thought they could get ahead in low risk quests, making things very slow. Once he capped he found another guild, the Silver Flame Guardians, a very solid guild a little more focused on the end game and raiding which Phlor excels at playing. Then he moved to the DG mainly to lesson the guild drama that larger guilds bring and that is when the TR train started and he hit a wall, A couple of times.

This is why while I feel responsible for Phlor. I didn’t so much talk him into TRing as became obsessed with TRing Samius to the exclusion of everything else. I helped him level as much as I could, I even logged onto his account and powered him up this last go around as he “really wanted to be an raid healer” but as far as I know has played his main maybe 5-6 times since I recapped him but in his own words “he is not a caster.”

So when he laid out his plan of TRing and leveling up with his newb real live friend and asked for my advice, I worried about the xp difference between a first life and a third plus lifer. And knowing that they are not going to be rocking an elite bravery bonus from 1-20 I worried about the xps being there with out burning him out again.

And when I didn’t share his excitement for his plan I felt his disappointment. It was clear enough that I picked up on it… And that is saying something.

But now I have a plan. If he were to TR his main and level with his friend and then at level 8 do the Otto’s box jump to 16+ but then save leveling up until his first life counterpart is ready to level then the xp difference would not be apparent. Phlor would almost always (once the stone Xp is gone things would get harder) have the xp to level until late in the game and they could do quests at whatever difficulty they want leaving the question of when to level up to the new player. Then as they get deeper into the game when xp starts to be an issue again options start to open up to having other guildies with alts at twenty to jump in and help power them through.

Anyway, if you want me to poo poo any of your plans make a note in the comment section or hit me up via samius @ ddococktailhour email.

<3s

Current Pull List: My Comic Books

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I don’t know if I have ran down my list of comic books lately if ever and I am having a case of can’t focus on work until my post is done so lets all see what I spend my comic book dollars on each month.

Iron Man – duh. No brainer for me right. Would like to see a War Machine reboot but as near as I can tell we are no joy that title right now.

Magician – This is one of my favorite novels of all time and I was hankering to read it but it is not in digital from that I can find anywhere expect comic book form. It has done its run and I could just buy it all at once but I am trying to slow roll it to myself. I have started picking up speed however as the story starts to hit major plot points.

Avengers/ New Avengers – this one is strange. I am not a big Avengers fan. But I a enjoying these two book runs. The New Avengers I am digging over the other but they are kinda Iron Man books 2 and 3.

Guardians of the Galaxy – I started reading some of the older copies thanks to some of the Marvel Mondays at comixology.com. They had some Thanos story arc sales and picked them up while they were cheep and started to fall for the book. And when the Marvel Now reboot started I thought why not, it is nice to have a read where shit is happening all over NOT earth all the time. Go break some shit where my taxes are not paying to fix it!

All New X-men/ X-men – Again I am not a huge X-man fan, although I also like Wolverine and the X-men but I am waiting and picking those up post new sale price. But I do like this All-New X-man run. Back in the day when I was first buying Comics Marvel did a reprint of the OG Xmen books. And I loved the OG team. This new story line where the OG team is pulled into todays world is fun times. The new X-men run I picked up for all the ladies. I don’t know a ton about some of these characters but other then Storm I dig them all and want to see them in action more and you can’t have more Girl action then an all girl X-men run. When they return to the mixed team I may or may not stick with them, IDK…

Thunderbolts – This is another cheep book even new, 2.99, and has Venom, DeadPool, the Punisher and Red Hulk all in one book. Oh and Electra who is okay I guess??

Dresden Files – I have become a Dresden fan, the novels are amazing so a monthly book with a new story … take my money.

LookOuts – this was a pointed out to me by one of the Penny Arcade guys and it is good. Like DnD with kids and blood good.

Saga – Think I have talked about this one before, think Lexx or a dirty Farescape book. It is very good but kind of a spaz on new book schedule and that might cost it a regular buyer and it might become a once a year book buy for me.

Buffy/Angel & Faith/Willow/Spike – Do I need to talk about these? They are no brainers.

Age of Ultron/ Thanos Rising – these are story arc books AoU is about to wrap up I think and I can read about Thanos all day he is quickly becoming my favorite villain of all time. Before him it was Carnage and the Shredder. Think about that…

TMNT/TMNT–Villains – Okay so the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles run is amazing. Totally worth the read every month. Now they do a lot of spin offs on the turtle run, lots of stand alones or 2-4 book story arcs. Most of them I skip, because they are about the heros and I know a lot about them from the books, However, my love for villains might be showing again because as soon as I saw the TMNT-Villains run I jumped on it.

Lastly my Farscape run has finished, damn it. I really liked that book. I haven’t picked up anything to fill that Sci-Fi niche But maybe once all these arc books have finished and I have powered through the back log of the Magician assuming they didn’t do the next book, I might try the new time line StarTrek book. IDK?

Hope the lack of DDo talk wasn’t too boring for you. <3s

More Rogue?

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If you are a regular reader here you know that I have become quite taken with my rogue. In my attempt to cram as much good stuff as I could into the build I had to give up a lot of stuff and as I play it and fall in love with it I wonder if I would like more specialized builds….

So today I am just going to do with you all something I did with Tobril last night while I cleared the nGH zone like a boss and Tobril played Neverwinter like a bitch, aka throw out ideas and see what sticks.

A bigger non-sneak attack dice based build i.e. a STR based build. Maybe something using the Acrobat Pre and a massive stick like a 12/6/2 rog/arty/monk or 12/7/1 rog/monk/ranger? Think the later has been done before but might be good.

I wouldn’t be apposed to a dwarf twf focused dps build. Maybe with ranger or fighter splashed? I could see a 12/8 or 12/6/2 build going less Int and more Str and using the mechanic PRE class to make up for the lesser skill points.

Just remembered something from Lam and dwarfs… Throw your Weight Around…. “Axes: You may use your Constitution modifier to determine the damage you deal with battle axes, dwarven waraxes, hand axes, greataxes and throwing axes.”

The 2 issues I have with my rogue now are low HP and low first number weapon dice. Could a MAX con dwarf two weapon fighting with axes handle both of these issues? Maybe????

Also if you are a long time reader you will remember how much I liked the X/9 rog/monk life I did on Samius. He had fairly good stunning fist DCs, could I make a monk/rog fist build with DCs that land in EE and still have massive amounts of sneak attack dice?

The thought of taking my current build at 20 and lessering out all the twf feats and going ranged all the time is a possibility. Doing so could make room for the rest of the bow feats I am missing hopefully making up for a slower rate of fire with damage vs GTWF… Problem with that is swapping for Assassinating, which is 90% of my fun at the moment.

Speaking of why I like the rog now vs other attempts right now hinges on being a ninja and sneaking around and then assassinating people. Could I really maximize that feeling more then I am? IDK, I am a INT/dex rog now. I can’t really go more INT then I am now and meet the prereqs for Imp Sneak Attack. Maybe if I was a Halfling… But then I would be trading even more HP out…

Other then that dwarf idea (I think a lot of people will try making that Throw your Weight Around work), I think the rest of these plans are not for me… Wonder if an axe thrower with Throw your Weight Around and whirling wrists on an Arty would work…. Never mind that.

Anyway leave comments and ideas in the “you know” what section.

❤

New Dog

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First thing you all need to know any and all pets in DDo are dogs. If it has 4 legs and is not a bear then it is also a dog, yes including trash mobs. If you find yourself tripped by a wolf/cat/wilderbeast the tripper is in fact a dog. Ergo the owlbear even though it has “bear” in its name is clearly a dog. Well the level 17 version anyway.

Maybe that is a good enough set up, if not rewrite the opening in the comment section.

So as I think you all can guess, I finally got a chance to try out my lvl 17 owlbear pet. No it wasn’t anything crazy amazing like let it solo its way through Litany for me, or anything like that. But we took a nice stroll through the nGH explorer zone on my rogue for about 25 mins and I have to say it was doing well enough for what that guy needs, aka a big distraction.

I set it for attack mode and it ran way head and got things started and then I was able to sneak up and finish things. I didn’t really watch the damage it took or its DPS I will say I saw a few one hit kills in the 160ish range but I don’t know if that is just it criting or if that is its normal attack numbers I was having too much fun playing assassin to really notice.

Sorry I can’t go into depth yet, but thought as I am seeing lots of feedback on the big one and not a ton on the little one that I would share this first impression. It didn’t die, it seemed to take actions as I wanted but go get agro is not hard for a hireling and it killed some stuff in the zone so I didn’t have to be the only one killing.

Will I use it in quest? Not a lot I am guessing. But I should maybe. That said I should also remember to move a copy of the Shard of summon a beholder over while it is amazing and I haven’t done that either soooooo who knows. Over all I was fairly impressed after reading all the complaints about the big boy.

<3s

I can be a Prejudice Asshole.

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We all face prejudice each day, how we handle that prejudice is what makes us who we are. If your reading this then you and I most share a little judgment from someone, aka we are gamers or comic book readers or prepers or maybe all three. Over this lass weekend I saw prejudice from a few angles of view and thought I would share.

Jump to a cook out I had with my in-laws, nothing super special. Meat, cake for cake eaters and a conversation, you know a normal family meal.

In dinners past, there have been a little fun poked and the wife and I at our newer prepper mindset. But as we pulled in I started to notice green on my sister–in-law’s front porch…. Strange. Walking up I noticed a lot of fresh lettuce in a window box. And a few window boxes in a few windows with leafy things growing in them.

The wife noticed and commented with a glad you didn’t bring a salad now?

Right there I was being a prejudice ass. I didn’t think my in-laws had even that level of preparation in them. I was wrong and I continued to be wrong as later after we ate my brother in law showed me his when shit goes down carry gun and his “survival gun” an U.S. Survival AR-7. Good enough that he can bring in some food for his family if he had to, his words more or less. Still think having more then a few days of food is a better start then a gun and 10k rounds for said gun but to each their own.

BTW, the AR-7 is very nice think I need to get one for myself; .22, light weight and the ability to stow the upper and barrel into its stock getting down to about 18 inches in length.

I was floored again, have they really grown up that much? As we talked some more I gave them tips for making raised beds and offered to help them build their own greenhouse. The whole time I was thinking are these the same people that were poking fun at me a year ago for buying my shelf reliance and wanting to have a few chickens in my backyard?

Then as we moved to reading and what books we have been reading I said something like now that I have found comixology and that most of my “free time reading” as returned to comics. And the comment was made of how when my sister in-law grew up she stopped reading picture books. Which got a laugh out of my mother in-law who said there are pictures in Harry Potter. And the topic turned to how my sister in-law liked the Twilight books and we all were feeling a little superior again. Or at least I might have been.

Is there a point to this? Not really. Is this the kind of prejudice that people encounter everyday do to race, sex, or who we love, from assholes? Not even close. Just saying that for everything that makes us different there is something that makes us the same. And even I, a married white middle class man that is more or less a emotionless ass feels like sometimes people are being a little prejudice against me, maybe we all need to grow up and just handle our own shit. Do I love my in-laws any less because they think my reading comics books is childless? No. Do I think less of them for liking Twilight? Lets skip that one… ☺

<3s

DDo Lite Weekend for Me

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This weekend was a little different one for me. I didn’t have super raging migraines (just the normal live with it ones ☺ ) and I wasn’t in any huge rush to do any thing really, I was just in chill mode and went with the flow.

But that somehow got me in trouble.

If you remember, a few weekends back a group of us did a TR push using a xp stone from the Otto’s box and rocketed from 1 to 20 in a weekend. Totally could have been in a day had people not needed to eat or sleep.

Anyway so those chars have been on the train back to 25. I am half dragging my feet as I am not totally in love with the Jug build but it is coming along. It is fine I am just not anymore excited to play it then any other melee build. And defiantly not more then say my rogue build…

Boy I am on a sidetrack roll this morning… SO everyone else besides the wife and myself has finished capping their stoned alts, we have taken our playtime the last few weeks and have been working on our little peoples. Meaning when I get on Saturday morning and people say they want to Web I say I will have to switch or flag real fast. Last weekend we got the drow city (Sssitewoqsdnflajf;fuckmylifeaskdan) chain cleared so all we needed was the 3 web quests. I called for the wife who was still in bed, to see if she was ready to get up… no answer. So when the team said lets just flag real fast I said sure.

We were on the last quest and almost done when the wife got out of bed. Told her a web was about 15 mins out and she was none to happy that I flagged with out her…

What?

Last I checked she was less then pleased with how her tank was playing, but then she reminded me that she had decided to get to cocoon before making a build decision. Well I point out that we can flag her this week or maybe even in a little while if she wants to web with someone else…. But the damage was done and I was an asshole the rest of the weekend.

After that web I really don’t know what else we did. Some GH flagging happened but I was trying to fall asleep in Madstone, it was like a light switch I was awake and then I wasn’t any more. When we finished I went to take a nap and the group pushed on knocking out a Tor and a FoT raid.

Then Sunday we had a little birthday cookout for a niece turning five. And then when we got home we decided to watch the Hobbit and that spilled over into watching the new Game of Thrones eps. All I got to do on Sunday was talk Grim into a few FR challenges in hopes I might be able to get a simi-good throwing star and really annoy Tobril with my starfoo.

I need to run.

<3s

Posted in DDo.