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Author Archives: samiusgurobo
Last Big Push
This weekend was a good one on many levels. The chickens are out of my parting spot and in their mansion/coop. I was able to pick up my new water tanks and got them plumbed up at least temporally. In DDo land, my piker account hit its’ 20th von completion, completely out of the blue for me. The wife pulled 2 or 3 web items from one run and was able to use them all on that alt. The British invasion managed to rock an EE tor with all dragons. And my arty finally got Litany flagged and I jumped from 16 to 18 in about an hour.
I will post some chicken video and pictures later in the week. But I just want to say the wife was really worried about them the first night we moved them out into their coop but now after a few hours of watching them do their thing she is finally okay with them being out of the house.
I will have better images of the tanks currently plumbed up with some of my thoughts but for now this one to give you some scale of a 200 gal tank will have to do.
Remmie setting the scale for the new tanks.
I am sure Grim will talk up the Tor run if not I will save that store for later in the week also. But let me just say it was a lot smoother then some of our other EE runs. And we were able to get the blue beat down also. We had been having issues with it. Even this weekend it was 3rd time was the charm…
The real story, I pugged a little on Samiusbot Friday night and knocked out 3 of the shroud flagging quests to maintain my elite BB. Then with the wife’s help over the weekend, I completed my sigil to run litany. Which I ran in to the ground last night after splurging and buying a 50% xp pot, for 90% of level 17. So now my arty is chilling at level 18 with 2 of the shroud flagging quests to do, which I think I can solo if I can’t find a group to help me out. Then I can run Coal Chamber and Devils until I am tired of that xp. After that it is a simple matter of pushing the last little bit to 20 and making time to rock him to 25 and grid out a few destinies.
Not real sure how likely it is that will happen. The wife has been powering up her very first alt to 20 with a plan to TR her. Not sure if that is a right now project or a when she is ready project. But I think she wants a BIG hit dps alt. And I think that she might be making herself one. If that is the case then I might be TRing a healer type alt or using a first lifer to help her get caught up to my rogue to play with her on him.
All I know is My arty goal is in sight and that is a big deal because other then the wife helping in a few key places (sigil farming) this guy has mostly soloed only which I think says a lot about the wf arty ranged as a build by its self….
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A Good and Mostly Productive Night
Last night I had breaking Phlor back in on the books. And we did so. He logged in and we got everything remapped, ran down the important changes to his char and then we jumped into the Vale for an hour or so of slowly clearing trash in the vale. It was a good relaxing night, just what he needed to feel like he could get back into the night. Or at least that is the feeling that I got from the night.
Then dinner happened and Phlor drifted away but didn’t log out. I can only assume that he fired up Eve… But Tobril logged on because of the bonus guild renown going on right now and wants to help push the DG to rank 80. Thank God. Feels like the wife and I are trying to push a house up a mountain most of the time. And I keep waiting to get steam rolled even more.
So we adjust to the new party make up and ransack Rusted blades. I swap alts as I sacked out right away but I have one or two alts that could use the xp as well as being around to renown grind.
After sacking Blades we move on to a few of the King’s Forest quest. But we finally land on the Unquite Graves. A quest I feel is really under rated for XP farming mostly due to the run to the quest.
Once sacking that I decide to call it a night. Go back to the boat to sell/repair look at my phat loots. And I got a Drow Great axe +5 combat skills, the Grave wrappings and a collection of sell able loot to the bar keep for almost 150K plat. Not bad for a night of renown farming.
But our renown farming was not the best. Think we might be doing some more renown farming tonight and I need to find a better couple of quests. Thinking that Von3 for mob/chest/pick up the end reward renown might be the way to go. And I have not ransacked von3 on anyone since epic levels made their way into ddo.
Anyway, where else do you go to farm renown?
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Kicked in the Balls, but I am still Smiling.
Last night the DG formed up and did a Web and A EE Tor… You know I remember back when 3ish hours of play was more then 2 quests… But that is a tangent for another time. No today I want to tell you about how I just kept getting kicked in the nuts in that EE tor.
Before we started the Tor I reset some of my destinies and some twists planning for the EE Blue dragon. That guy is still causing me problems. But the rest of the quest is fairly easy. So naturally I was clicking on Cocoon when some random giant crits me (as I have swapped out extra fort for energy shield…) right at the start of the quest. I mean in the first 10 mins. And LEAD the killed count.
During the boss fight I had the agro of the boss and at least 1 skelly. Down to 100 sp I let people know I am going to shrine and someone needs to take the boss so I can go. In a few secs the boss is off me and I take a hit. Instead of DDing and leaving I try to heal first then I plan to DD. Nope another killer hit. Death 2.
I get rezed first thing DD. Heal on the way to the shrine and rest up. I get back to the fight. Firing off one chain missile and 3 magic missiles at the boss as my target and for some reason 2 of the caster skellies and one of the barb skellies break off whoever has had their agro this whole time and roll me. Hold Monster and a few other spells take me low, just as I break free I get reheld and hit by the barb skellie. Ding again. Death 3.
Thankfully, I lived to the Black Dragon fight with out another death and I was good through the fight, one dragon down, two to go. During this time another guildie logged on and joined our group. But he took more then one death durning the Black fight and raged logged just before the wall went down and refused to get back on to loot the chest. One less puller. L But on the up side one person (not a DG) pulled the True Imp Blood augment. So that was a nice pull. I tried to roll on it even thought he wanted it but I lost the roll so /cry. J
After we looted I ran over to were the Tor boss fight is and started to clear that room one fight at a time. Assuming everyone was right behind me. I looted all the gold, the chest and shrined what could they be doing? I get held again and killed, look over at the wife’s Screen and they are still in the black room buffing? /facepalm…
The rest of the quest was poking fun at me for being squishy. But at this time I only had one more death then the other caster, who was leading the poking fun charge. But I gave as good as I got. And when his death count (White Dragon fight) caught up to mine I pointed out that he was just squishy as I was… and that was good times.
Then the Blue… Everything was going well. We prepped the giant. I left Rainbow off as to not perma dot him. And we all switched to the dragon. I get low on trash and Cocoon is not enough and I pop a heal scroll but it is too late and I take a huge hit from the giant who should have been on the sorc, ding! There are a few more deaths, but the wife lives long enough to throw not one but two rezs my way as I take a ball lighting right as I take the rez as a ranged person runs trash to the wall where people are coming back to life.
She throws another one and I see her fail the concentration check due to another bloody ball lighting. Tobril throws me a rez so I can start rezing others but I move away from the trash and it vanishes. I hate when that happens. We all decide that he should just kill the dragon/giant as they are prepped but I think he threw one more rez at the sorc and it was a good thing he did as about then he drinks a silver flame pot, fails a save and is slowed and he dies. The sorc pops up and blasts hard with both guys at a sliver and we win.
The DG was skunked minus Tobril getting the Cold/force stick but think as a whole we had at least 1 named item per chest. Just would have loved getting the hat I want.
Want to say finished that quest with around 5-6 deaths. But I kept a smile on my face because I was having fun. Maybe once I find that hat I can start the massive gear shuffle and I wont be a squishy little Halfling any more.
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What I am Watching
Today I had a bit of a topic block. Twitter had some good topic ideas but nothing I wanted to cover too much today as I want to get some up to date photos or wait for an upcoming event. Like I will talk about the chickens again when we move them to their coop for the first time or fishes when I start getting the aquaponics rolling. So today I cover an old stand by what I am watching.
Most long time readers know that I have a second computer screen that I use to stream Netflix and now HBO go… plus I get to go home for lunch as I live like 2 mins from work. So I do get to watch a little TV each day. Oh and the 30-40 mins before heading out to work in the morning… J I bring that up as the kid was almost late to school today due to my watching Swamp People!
So Shows, Swamp People I have talked about it before. By far one of my favorite shows and an almost perfect pre work show as watching people fishing monsters can get the blood pumping.
MI-5 this is a little British show, guess I shouldn’t say that now as I just looked and it has been running since 2002 and looks like it is still running. I am into session 3 and I love it. Doesn’t hurt that British chicks are hot…
Game of Thrones, think almost everyone is watching this one right now. The third session as just started and I would have waited and picked up the blueray like we did with S2 but the wife didn’t want to wait. Also she wanted to re-watch the first session as to follow the plot a little better. I have to say with it playing there my DDo skills are really improving. I didn’t die or even pause when the nude scene/s started and was able to keep rocking xp even if my eyes were screaming!
As all ways we are watching the normal shows Storage Wars and American Restoration.
But there are two shows that have me totally hooked right now Counting Cars and Income Property.
Lets start with Counting Cars, http://www.history.com/shows/counting-cars. It is another History Reality Show in the same vain as Pawn Stars and American Restoration but about fixing up cars and other vehicles. Now I am a sucker for fix it shows. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because I can’t fix my way out of a paper bag or maybe I just wish I had been interested in this kind of stuff when I was a kid and my father was trying to teach me some of these skills. But I was to far in my own world to be bothered to learn… I just don’t know. But I dig them!
Income Property, http://www.hgtv.com/income-property/show/index.html, has a similar feel as it is a fix it up show but has a different hook they are always trying to turn the property into a way to make money. In some cases to reduce payments, others to eliminate payments or in most cases to get positive income. It is really good watch.
I would love to have a few houses that Scott has redone so I am making enough money that I could afford to buy a car/bike from the Count and having my Urban Farm running well enough that my full time job could be blogging/podcasting and playing DDo that would be living the dream!
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I am a Mild Screw Up…
Okay sometimes I feel like I am not so mild of a screw up. I started gearing up my newly lvl 16 arty last night post taping of the www.DDoCocktailhour.com and I started looking at things.
First off I have a few Dragontouched docents. Nothing amazing, but a con 6/ GFL/ 100 sp one that I have used a lot. Doing a test swap I notice I am not wearing a con item. No wonder I failed all those disintegrates in GH… sigh.
So I start to juggle. I can just leave the DT docent on and try to find room to fit in what I am missing from the docent of Quickening. But I quickly dismiss that idea for a plan B.
Replace the Wrath of Sora Kell set with 3 different items. First a 150 sp hat simple upgrade although the 100 sp from the docent would stack easy enough… My gloves swap to an old stand by of the Spectral Gloves. And I make an easy con 6 yellow slotted ring.
This is a good spot for a tangent. The new augment system for crafted items are a lot like trash loot to me now. Before I would have used a guild slotted item and devoted it a slot either on my gear list or in my bank for TRing when I finished with it. These new slots unless they are on just amazing gear they are super easy to use and throw away. They seem to drop well enough and if I can handle the higher potential then it is just as usable as a BTA item and I don’t have to go and farm one up. 😉
So my current list is sp hat, UMD necklace, voice, DQ goggles, docent of what is haste, GFL ring, Con 6 ring (yellow slot), Fort belt (med guild slot Sp), Wind howler bracers, FF/divine power clickly boots oh and the Stormreaver cloak!
More or less happy with my gear list I think I can slot some SP in that yellow slot and start putting HP in my belt. Run to the AH/SH and find a 100 sp augment for a price I am not unwilling to pay (6 shards) and get the puppy slotted. When I realize/remember that the augments are all enchantment items and I just slotted that 150 hat into my gear setup…
Sigh…
Guess in the short term I can use my hat as a swap slot… As if I had an item to swap too right now… Long term I just burned 6 shards unless I want to use a jeweler tool to pop it out? Which seems a little worth less. Going to chalk this all up to a learning experience. But now I am down to 3 of my free shards left…
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You will be Amazing or Else!
This weekend was full of DDo. There was a little yard work done but mostly it was too windy to really get into it, so the wife and I stayed in and played DDo.
But as it can do (shit I am starting to sound like the Brits now..) the weekend turned into what do you want to do? Sure we did a few raids and a few item hunts but until we stumbled into EE Tor we were mostly unfocused.
The first quarter of the quest, the quest itself went very quickly and smoothly. I even broke out my new playthings; I was able to pick up the new Dreampiercer and Sireth, Spear of the Sky very nice! I would have preferred the new cloak from FoT but mad loots for Samius is good loots.
We started to stumble on the dragons however but we pushed threw the Black and the white ones easy enough. The Blue on the other hand still causes us issues, after 3 tries at the blue dragon lots of them real close to winning it was like 3 in the morning for the Brits and one last push was out of the question. Besides how many time do you hear 4th time was the charm?
Next day we do a gear/twist check and we find some areas that can use some help. Samius might have to adjust his twists for energy sheath but when we all look at our EE healer we find some holes.
Like a focus we start to hunt xp and gear for this key person. She needs xp because she has more or less worked up Exalted Angel destiny and never left it. Why would she? The character mostly is pulled out to heal us all in EEs and doesn’t do much else. Although she has the purple knight favor AND lots of good toys at her disposal… So working her down to Draconic for energy sheath is about to be key for EE blue dragon hunting.
Also we start hitting the Giant Hold chain for any djinn rings for some electric absorption. Turns out Javabot was one or two quests from completing the chain and got a normal on in the end list… We might even need to make a few shroud absorption items even tear one and two would really help reduce the damage of those traps. I know a few mins in to the fight as soon as I failed to save vs the traps I was dead and Sam has about 700 hp 1000 if my queen likes me so I will be making a tear 2 absorb item for the blue dragon for sure!
The thing I felt was the funniest comment of the whole weekend was Rach (our EE healer) saying that one of her guildies (the tank at the time) needed to cap out her healer and would be doing so EVEN IF SHE (Rach) HAD TO LEVEL IT HER SELF!
Well I will admit that cord struck true and I think once I have gotten my arty up into epic levels I will try to break out my healer and maybe get him EE ready. I am not sure how well a first life mostly under geared Clr will do, maybe I should lesser my first live FvS? I am sure when the time comes I will talk it out with you all here…. So very exciting.
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Anyone Else A Little Excited by Shit?
Its okay, you can tell me. I won’t poke fun. Okay I will but just because this is not about scat play, although if is your bag… Right on. No I am talking composting… Yes, more gardening … J
Now that my greenhouse is 80% or more done and is in use I am already spinning down the line as to what is next… Looking at my plants right now things are good if spartan at the moment. I have lots of room but I am not sure how much of my room will be eaten up by my aquaponic system but I have to think I will have lots of room as my current plans are fairly small. So I need more rich amazing dirt and the best planting dirt comes from shit.
Also yesterday I went to take some temperatures in out side of the green house and inside over lunch. And while the temperature difference was impressive
Outside open air: 56
Inside open air : 85+ (closed up open things dropped to about 70)
Out side soil: 60ish
Inside soil: 71 which I hear is about ideal for most plants.
But it made me think how am I going to heat this thing in the winter? Do I even try? Or do I just hope I have enough thermal mass and light to push through?
Then I remembered the shit and started some Goggleing. Did you know that while composting the piles heat up? In some cases to 160 in some rare cases if allowed to dry out too much they have started on fire…
So there is a chance I could use some of the natural materials and the chicken shit to get two birds with one stone by composting the right way.
Wow! This guy just used compost heat to power his shower for 500+ showers, the power of poop.
Look around for jean pain method for more info. Me I am thinking about a 55 gal drum on rollers but I will need to start it outside on the ground as to collect some earthworms???? I don’t know, more research. I might just be able to make an pile out side of the window use a tarp and some ducting and heat the thing? Lots of thoughts/information to fit into a working idea.
Well wish me luck, have a good weekend and I hope to have some DnD talk on Monday.
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Updated!
Do I need to say more? Didn’t think so.
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And Waiting….
As it happens it was Wednesday last night and Tobril was around to get his raids on, sounds sweet right? I mean who doesn’t want to raid with Tobril and myself? It is 630-645 and the current DG members form up, Tobril gets the star as he wants to raid, he gets to put the groups together. I do some mild bank work waiting for things to happen.
In about 5-10 mins I have finished my upkeep work and check out the grouping, looks like we have 4 to 5 slots left to fill and I read a comic. Around 7 I hear the wife make a comment look up and we have lost a guy and gained another guy but over all the we are hovering around the same number of people…
I say something to Tobril, who starts a 5 min alarm and warns everyone that when it goes off we will move on or try a shortman. Time passes and when the alarm goes off we move on to a web run.
Web was fairly fast and was going very smooth until the unofficial leadership switch happened and some people did follow instructions and we had to fall back so people understood the new leadership plan. Basically Tobril has enough Webs under his belt now to lead the first 3/4s of the raid. The end fight still has some hang-ups like safe spots and judging if a shrine is needed or not. But for the most part between the two of us we have it down.
But we got it done like always quickly and fairly well. The other healer was so surprised that we were going on hard he wondered if he had the pots for it. By the end he was letting us know that if we ever needed an Hjealer to look for him. Even then I think we could have tighten things up a lot. Had a few more people been watching their curses we would not have need a fall back and shrine and we would have won a eH run on 1 shrine. That is good healing/CC/DPS/leadership… J
By the time we filled the web and ran it after it took its sweet time filling I was ready to log for the night. I just haven’t been playing as late as normal lately or starting as early either really. To much work to do during the week so I can screw off all weekend.
Oh real fast the last 2 webs I have run have had the phat loot drops. Just nothing I overly want… But in those runs I have seen 2 xbows, 2 bastard swords, 1 longbow, 1 handwraps, 1 axe and 1 other weapon and I for one have gotten coms each run.
Time to run, but I want you all to know, if you play on Sarlona about 6-630ish central time on Wednesdays the DG will be throwing up raids. We will teach people as needed so look for our lfms. Also on weekends we do things with the Brits, same deal but you have to look for us in the who panel or via the Defense channel there are no lfms for weekend runs normally.
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Samius Gurobo 