Author Archives: samiusgurobo

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

 

Mindless Wondering

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So for the last few weeks I have been jumping from project to project at work unable to really get focused on any one of them or given the time to complete any of the said projects. It is a real problem as I am now completely unfocused now at work even though I don’t have the time to waist on this bullshit.

I have always been good at letting side projects fester to the side of my mind while I knock out whatever project I am doing at the moment. Hell that is part of the reason I started my old blog on my.ddo was to try and clear my cache some and get DDo out of my system so I would free up some more brain cells for the important things at the moment.

But now I find myself once again preoccupied with so many side projects that I can’t seem to focus on the main goal. Which is killer as once again I have a last min/high priority project that is about 3 weeks of work that needs to be done and about 2 weeks to get it done.

But I can’t seem to clear the side buffers. I find my foremind wondering about this work project or that on or DDo or my farm stuff. I find myself brain locked and needed to take 5 to try and regroup.

I found myself wondering around the Vale last night running explorers when I had intended to xp/speed run in the Vale quests but my mind shifted to work thoughts and not game thoughts and what was left of my goals at least kept my moving in some helpful way. But I more or less lost the nights gaming to work and I hate that.

I don’t know what to do, or how to help myself. I am half thinking that I need to start taking long baths at work so to have more eureka moments and push through my blocks but what I realy need is to be able to work at home and play at work so when my mind has answers I can jump on them and not try to save them from 12 hours past….

Anyway, pretend I said something inspiring and mind blowing in this closing and not this and maybe it will allow you to be the laser beam and get work or play done.

<3s

Gurobo Farms Update Apr 16

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First of all if you didn’t see the new Clankenbeard art work of me as M.O.D.O.K. then look for a bonus post from last night. It is amazing as always. Really it is great. Thinking about asking if it is cool to make tee shirts with this on the back. I just need CTH to stand for something as cool/evil as AIM…

Okay lets hard break to the leaf of this post, Backyard Farm update. Last night as a fam we did some work/repairs on the greenhouse.  We had a few days of real strong winds where I realized that I had made a real error the placement of the door of my greenhouse. It is facing north. So right now as the seasons are changing we are getting a fairly strong north wind that is trying to blow my green house up like a balloon.  Meaning that this winter I will also have a cold wind attacking my greenhouse. Had I put the door on the south side then we would have been much better off. Live and learn I guess. I wonder if I could get 6 or 8 strong friends to help me pick the hole thing up and turn it around??? Maybe if we do a down time and empty the thing I can make that happen.

Over all things are growing well.

Grow beads 1-3

We have enough greens for a salad they are really going as you can see.  To the right we have some tomatoes and some herbs growing. And in the back of that tray the bell peppers are doing well.

Here is a close up of tray three where we have some more herbs growing and doing fairly well but toy can see the cucumbers just starting to pop up. These were all from seeds so I am happy to see them growing at all.

Speaking of seeds, the seeds I have right now are just from True Value, which is fine as most of my plants are from the same place atm. I don’t know the quality of these seeds or the plants they are going to be, but I did pick up some heirloom seeds from Underwoodgardens.com. They have a solid reputation and I have high hopes for them. And when they come in I will go into getting them started.

In tray 4 we have the peppers and they are rocking as they do. But here you can see my soil tmp, a nice warm 61.

Bead 4

 

Very over cast day. Also you see one of the new water tanks temporally set up as a rain barrel.

As you can see it was warm but overcast last afternoon. Want to say the air temp was about 54… And the tmp difference was great enough that the wife was annoyed anytime I wanted her to help me out side of the green house. J

Lets see two quick photos of one of the tanks in place.

Filling the tank with 175 gals of water… Oh the water bill this month might hurt.

Messy Samius.

When we first started to fill the tank I had the value open and made a bit of a mess. But you can see the basic plan. Big tank of water add fish and plants, grow both and win. But here is the thing; I really think I want to pump the water from the bottom drain, shit sinks right? And/or I want to be able to set things up to drain water out of this to water the plants with once and awhile so to both control and ammonia build up and as bonus fertilizer tee. I don’t think it would be all that tasty but the plants love it.

Soon I hope to have fish in the tank and my grow beads going real soon just need to get their supports in and setup.

Well better get moving on the day.

<3s