Author Archives: samiusgurobo

Build thoughts for Anne, on the Quick

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*Due to a massive snow storm that hit Kansas work closed early and i was scrambling most of the day and didn’t get this posted. I will be knocking out a proper post for today later but for now…

So I got to catch up on DDocast yesterday and on this weeks show Anne asked for build help for a soloing melee (assumed) clr/fighter/monk(?) build…. And while I should take a few more days to think things over wook is taking a snow day and I just need to put out a blog so instead of writeing about Epic GH like everyone else lets do some build talk! I think you can stay 12/7/1 Anne but you might still need a +1 heart…

First thought is if you’re doing a 1 lvl splash classes that are best are Arty, Fighter and barb. Monk is okay, but these other options are just better. Me I really love Arty for ranged feats and the +1 weapon buff. Hey +1 to hit and damage is amazing and having a lever opener that can die in traps all day long is nice that and she already has fighter levels.

Next is play style, Sword and Board is the nuts for soloing. Add in enough PRR and good self-healing and you may not be the uberest dps but you will get through almost anything. So Defender 1 for sure, taking about prestige classes we don’t want to forget Radiant Servant 2.

So I missed race, TR lives and gear specs so I am just going to be fugue on stats and whatnot and just give out lines for those things. But like many builds this one will be a big amp build meant to last in a fight not finish fast and heal when the fight is done. So Con is more important Str, Chr has double duty for Arcane buffs as well as healing and you will want enough Int for cross-classed UMD and balance, and you need just enough wisdom to cast a owls wisdom if you loose your Wisdom item.

As for a fully fleshed out build, there are just too many options for 20 mins build time to really look at in detail.

Well good luck Anne, hope you find something that works for you. Now if you want a 18/1/1 fighter/barb/arty build let me know and I can get you a few plans…

❤

The Night Before U17 Check List & I lose my Mind Again.

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So If I remember right and there is nothing saying that I am, but if I am then right now u17 is being installed into my favorite pastime. And with it there were some simi-massive changes taking place that if you’re like me you need a little reminder to take care of them all.

First thing I did was run through the Lam release notes; the release notes are often the same between Lam and Live. Think that this update will be a lot different then the norm however.

The first stand out was old GH dragon armor will no longer have a decon recipe. So I hit the guys I had old GH dragon armors on and made sure I had already deconstructed them if I wasn’t going to use them.

Old Guild Slots are out. This one I have mixed feelings about. I liked the guild slots, sure there were some flaws but I think had they removed some of the restrictions on what can go where and let people replace the slots before the old timer was done I think that they would be really great. As is I am one of the very few people that bother to use guild slots. So for the last few weeks I have been hitting the AH and buying up any affordable large guild slotted common TR gear slots, ie boots and gloves for me. But I have been looking at just about any item type.

And lastly I took every alt that could run Deal with a Demon and ransacked that quick chest on Elite with the loot bonus and the +2 game boost just like just about everyone else. Having been working on TRs and the like I didn’t have a ton of people that could do so but I had 3 or 4 and I took and hour and emptied that chest on every one of them like I have been every week since I heard that it was leaving. Hell, news that this chest was going was why I started sacking it. I didn’t even know that it was there before that news and had to ask the Brits as to what chest was going. Yep I can be a noob also.

*edited*
There was one other thing i had to remember to do before the new augments took effect, slot toughness in a epic items. Meaning i also had to fill any other epic slots on items that i didn’t want to update to the new versons of the epic slots. In hindsight i should have taken a few mins and looked at all of my epic items that i am currently using. Samius for example has a epic shield that i know i slotted -15% asf but i think there is also a red slot that i didn’t want to add a metal/alignment type to but the spell power might be handy…

I tweeted last night about what I called my senior moment. It was the ddo equivalent of misplacing my hat.

samius

Have you seen my hat? I can’t find it any place I look….

I wanted to take the last few hours of the xp boost that I would be awake and rock some xp on Samiusbot and I did but not as much as I should have because I was looking for my level 11-12 rune arms, having just leveled to 12. Now I have an lvl 7 arty alt I rolled up back when Samius was about to do his arty life just to try and get a feel for the class, and this alt became my “arty bank”. Any rune arms and/or arty scrolls get filtered to this guy. So when I went to look for my missing rune arms I started with him. When they were missing I started running down the other guys that get some play but mostly are used as temp storage and nothing. And hour goes by as I just start hunting at the top of the alt log in list and run down the whole pile. Skipping Samiusbot of course because why would I be looking for rune arms for a guy who just leveled to the point where he could use them? About 9 pm I gave up and decided I would just struggle on with out those rune arms, I mean how bad can it be? So I run down the TR cache. And then as I am moving out dated gear from my pack to the bank I see them all sitting in a little pile. Low level rune arms and below them higher level rune arms. I was so pissed. Most of the night was gone because I am a fool.

Well this is long enough for today, see you in GH tonight!

<3s

Fumblebot, he is a Helper

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I have had a few accounts for a while now, since before F2P. My main account and the boy’s/family account are the two oldest, but now I have access to Phlor’s account and another friend who gave me their account information not long ago. Having an alt account is not for everyone. But with F2P I would suggest giving it a try if only for the low price of 5$ you can have a lot more long-term storage space.

Anyway last night I was soloing along on Samiusbot doing Shadow crypt hard runs using Fumblebot as an opener. When a guildie logs on and starts chatting in guild chat about Fumbles. He thought that his name was spot on for a piker/opener. And it got me thinking; I really haven’t talked about my alt account guys a whole lot.

SteamPower, the first guy on my alt account to get to 20 and now 25. He is flagged for Web, Shroud, DQ and Von but not the Cannith raids or Tod. Will need to fix that soon as I think we (DG/HoDW) are about to run at least Tod a lot more and now I have a desire to run LoB and that will make Tobril happy. And if you have the slots, epic pikers that can do off buffs are welcome, and as an arty he is often very welcome.

Elad, this is one of those turn-over account guys. Elad is a drow ranger and is all over the map gear and set up wise. JP the accounts original owner had Elad at the cap back when the cap was 16 and simi well geared for back in the day but now is mostly junk geared. The wife took over the account capped him and flagged him for the raids that she wanted a piker around for her pulls. Mostly Devil Assault solo but she also brings him in DQ, Von and some other no flagging raids.

Fumblebot is a xp capped shadow crypt opener. He was built wrong however, but at the time he was what I needed. I was leveling up Darth Samius and I knew I could do most if not all of the flagging quests on a pure melee. But I wouldn’t be able to finish the fight in the capstone alone. So enter Fumbles a level 7 wizard to do the last fight. He is as gear out as I could make him at level 7 and as he jumped levels his gear upgraded a lot until he is were he is now. He runs the quest on elite and then recalls and drops group while the real alt runs threw the empty quest and finishes up. The Fumbles runs back to the boat and chills. I need to set him up to open bloody crypt and Thrall of the Necromancer for fast leveling, but for now he is mister shadow crypt and/or can do the flagging quests for those that can’t.

Rollin Thehay, is a bard/rog SS build that I plan to park around level 14/16 to help with orchard quests. Someone that can sing the elementals in fleshmakers would make soloing it easier again and I just don’t have someone that can fill most of the buffing slots at that level. But right now she is xp capped at level 10 as she is my Thrall of the Necro helper even if she currently can’t open.

What I need is to get an arty or a sorc/rog parked for Thrall, Stk and WW part3 runs those are quests that I like to use as farming points for some lives.

Well work is being a bear so I need to get moving. Do you have any piking accounts? If so what are the meant to do?

<3s

Summoners

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Looking over my epic bits spreadsheet I have realized that I have two “summoner” items ready to go, more or less, the Wolf Whistle and Roderi’cs Wand. To me this items scream “summoner” but we really don’t have a “summoner” in ddo, or do we?

At first when I realized that I had these items ready to go I thought to myself, “Got to get my Arty capped, ASAP!” The wand makes total sense as my Arty uses his dog, Robutt, in battle. Robutt, btw comes from the classic short story by Isaac Asimov “A Boy’s Best Friend” so no dirty jokes or reporting me for using “butt” in a name.

The Epic Thaarak hound would make a killer summon once the flame turret as more or less out lived its main usefulness.

But then last night I was working on Javabot, who made it to level 21 over the weekend, if you were wondering. And the first thing I did once stepping into some quest alone was summon Fin Fang Foom, the dryad and called my cat gold seal hire. Aka I summoned an army.

And I really don’t have room to fit in augment summoning into Java’s build but I could push it into Samiusbot’s build….

Unless the feat stacks with the granted feat from the wand, which I don’t think it does, giving Java the wand is just a better idea.

As for the wolf whistle, I think atm it is still best to remain on Samiusbot’s gear list. That poor bot doesn’t have an torc yet so he might even leave it on for the slots post 20 until an torc comes on line???

Anyway what do you think?

❤

EE Skullsmasher

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So a little while back I was talking about level 20+ weapons for Javabot to rock while in animal form. In that post I said there wasn’t much of anything in epic GH that I was that impressed with at least for Java in weapon form, Then later that day I was looking at the ddowiki, as I often do when I need to be inspired, and I happened to find myself at the list of level 25 weapons in the game and started checking them our. When I got to the Skullsmasher I was floored.

I will put a copy of the image from the wiki on my Gdrive so you all can check it out. If the image becomes broken at some point in the future the ddowiki link is here.

Skullsmasher EE

So lets check it out:

+7, Cool I can use all the help in the to hit/damage department I can get.
Intim +20, Well Java won’t be intimidating all the time, but as a S&B build with max ranks I could sometimes intim for lesser trash and the off boss like Sully in Tod?
Sup Ribcracker: An on crit effect for 13d8 is not too shabby to bad it only crits on a 20.
Red slot: Not a bad think to have in a weapon.
3.5[d6], Not amazing damage for an EE level 25 weapon, but its fine….

Now if we glue the wolf form stats to this thing we get a monster.

The base dice becomes a d10 and the crit profile becomes 19-20 X3 then we take the dice multiplier and glue it on to our wolf stats aka 3.5[d10] 19-20. That is amazing damage. It is a whole multiplier stronger then any web weapon and some of us are killing ourselves for the right web weapon.

That Ripcracker looks a lot better on a 19-20 that becomes 17-20 with Imp Crit but remains on a x3 weapon…. Add in holy burst via tod ring, a d10 frost (cold breath) and maybe shocking burst via a second tod ring and you have a big dps weapon. Way better then I first thought.

You spot any hidden sleeper eGH items for you?

❤

Another Night

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Started out on a high and went down hill slowly until I decided to go to bed. Lets run it down so there is something worth reading.

Samiusbot, lvl 10 arty, soloed a simi fast Spies in the House. I did have a death when an air elemental kicked me out into an electric charged floor and it took me too long to get back the save spot and had to get the dog to run me to a shrine…. But for a solo run it wasn’t too bad. I managed to have run pushing my skills on my mostly ungeared arty.

I wrapped up just about the time Tobril and the wife logged in for raids and we did a quick DQ. Thinking about it, Darth also took a death right at the end thanks to a group of blades that just sat on me and chained sawed me up.

Abbott was way smooth, the wife and I did goggles using the same room method, aka I moved my screen so she can see whats up via looking at my screen and I her screen. I managed to get a seal thanks to Dis having gotten a seal for every item he has from the Abbott. Dis is a one alt guy so he can have one of every item and then some and them all upgraded.

Then the “fun” started. Elite Enter the Kobold. Now I expect deaths in eEK or at least any time I am not 100% solo for eEK with like a huge caster/evasion guy. Like Samius’ last like I had no issues but he had like a 38-43 reflex score with his 2 rogue levels so those runs were fine. But as it happens part of the time Tobril forgot the pit trap and took a dive for a quick death. And then in the end fight l over pulled trash when the Kobold jumped down into the main area of the room and Java not having a ton of HPs 460ish or evasion started just taking massive fire damage even with my firestorms/fireshield spell running and I ate it hardcore and not long once I dropped Tobril fell when he got the love of the whole room. We recovered thanks to FinFangFoom hanging out at the lever.

Then starts a hard spam where no matter what I somehow had the love of the whole room and some times I could kill the Kobold and mostly won before taking a dive. Once we dropped all the bosses and then looting the chest I took enough fireballs to finish me off.

Think I died in every quest last night other then the Abbott and the DQ 6man…

But I got some where in the 110k+ range in less then 2 hours. I took before and after screen shots so I can give a solid number when I get home. But I will say I really started tilting and just couldn’t get out of the tailspin. But somehow kept having fun.

Anyway, need to get in a little more work so going to call it. Have a good Vday. Kiss your ladies or boys and rock some kinky sex and see you in game on Friday.

❤

Take 19 when Your Ready!

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So a few weeks back Geoff Hanna from http://www.gamergeoff.com/ did a post about holding level 18 until your ready to take level 20. He ran down a good list of arguments and clear thinking as to why you might want to hold out. I left him a comment about now with epic levels your no longer cutting yourself off from some groups and there are a lot of builds out there that should take level 19 as they get a big power boost. But over all we both agreed that when to level was up to the player and they content/groups they want play with.

And then the emails and tweets start coming in, a trickle at first but more and more of late, enough that I will go ahead and do a write up myself.

So lets look at the advantages of taking level 19. The ddowiki lists 38 level 17 and higher quests. This does include some raids and some F Realm quests, which we save for epic hard BB to make epic leveling faster. So we really have around 28 quests. Other then the level 17s taking 20s with you wont break your streak (and really take 20s on the 17s wont either but they will suspend it) while opening up the number of people that can group with you.

Think about that. How many people do you know with level 14-18 level alts vs the number of people with level 20 – 21 level alts? I will bet there are a lot more level 20 alts hanging out then all the level 14-18 alts combined. It is just a matter of what do you want to do? Does the 5th or 6th vale quest repeat for 6k xp sound like fun or does a elite Gen point for 22k+ sound like the winner?

For me I don’t mind repeating some quests 4-10 times in a row. But they have to be quick quests with a good xp/min and some kind of for the fun of it feel, like New Ring Leader or the STK capstone quest. But after I walk down the vale quests I am done with them for the most part.

Okay so we looked at grouping so the next major factor is builds. Does your build get a huge boost at 19? There are lots of key levels in ddo builds. Tobril’s FvS build for example gets wings at level 19 (17/1/1). When doing a 18/2 wiz OR clr/ ??? build 19 is level 9 spell . There is no reason to not take a level if taking it will make the next few 100ks of xp faster/more fun. If there is no gain and you’re having a good time then…

Guess what I am saying is taking 19 or holding to 20 is a very build and personal decision, but with the addition of post 20 levels your not cutting off the potential content/people like you were pre epic levels. In fact you might be hurting yourself by not taking 19. But if you do take 19 then you need to be willing to do the kind of content that is around and you need to be disciplined enough to hold out on taking 19 until you have done all the content you want to do pre 19.

Hope that clears up my thoughts for you that wanted me to expand on my comments on Geoff’s blog.
<3s

PS:
I also want to add leveling can be a huge morale boost. Not to single out Geoff again, but he seems to be stuck in a place where he hasn’t leveled in a looooooog time. And it seems to be wearing on him. I have been there. When you’re holding and holding and it seems like it has been weeks and weeks with out any forward progress you can loose morale quickly. When grinding out the 6+ life on a massice TR train any pick me up can be welcome.

Turning 20 Weapons for JavaBot

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Most of you know that I have been fairly focused on a few main alts. Foremost after Samius is Javabot, not that you would know as the playtime that is being shared between him, Darth and Samiusbot right now. But its true. The only major player that hasn’t been getting the love is Samyus just because what is there to tank atm?? Not a lot, unless I want to ready for EE DQ, but why bother with that right now? Java on the other hand will have a need to do some of the content that I haven’t really bothered with, looking at you Lob and Mad Arty. A crystal fire/air aka seeker+10/ 6% double strike shield sounds mighty fine when I don’t need to worry about amp/DR.

But I want to talk weapons.

So last live Java’s main weapon was a simple pos/pos GS great sword, nothing fancy or frilly about it. As I don’t have another tr plan for him at this time I am inclined to make him a few toys that have been burning a hole in my pocket as it were. And I have touched on this a few times but not from the point of view of 20 plus.

So keeping my mind that Tod rings work like they work in animal form and that I want to get a VoN red docent this is my list of possible toys.

Epic Sirroco:
Longsword: Base (+6), Air Guard, Epic Telekinetic, Force Burst, Sirocco, Smoke Screen, Vertigo (+10) and a Red slot. So with the new augment system I could slot an extra d10…

Very tasty CC weapon and happens to boosts takedown very nicely, but not the king of the DPS.

Kron’zek’s Cruelty:
Scimitar: Base (+6), Shocking Burst, Maiming, Keen, Lightning Strike, Improved Destruction, Red

Like my Lig2 but works with my Holy burst Tod ring while swapping holy for maiming and shocking blast for Imp Dest. Also happens to be a weapon druids are proficient with so it is like +4 to hit as well as a simi viable weapon when out of form. Don’t think the keen will work in animal form but what are the odds I can find something like this that has impact?

Epic Timeblade was on the list but I think I have leaned more to the Sirroco + a Lob shield for CC.

Drow of X weapon master trash weapon types were also on the maybe list for a long time like daggers and whatnot. But as most of their effects come from their base being changed it is not worth the hassle.

I had been looking at the Web weapons but I just don’t see them being better now that the set bonus is being changed to no longer stack with other like set bonuses. Yes Java runs a claw set.

Tobril wants me to look at the throwing weapons from the Evening star Challenges, depending on how fate is feeling the day I do some testing I might give them a try.

I also have been looking at the Lam forums to see if there is a one handed weapon that gives me a hard on with the GH update, and there is not. ☹ There is lots of nice gear for other slots but weapons have just been bad lately, in my eyes.

As all ways if I am missing a killer 1 handed weapon let me know.

<3s

Call me: Heal Dodger!

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This was a hell of a tough weekend for some people, including myself at times, in game. But mostly it was hard on the wife, as her lvl 23 clr got to heal our EE group.

The wife is still finding her footing again as the healer. She has taken a break to level her Bowonk and TR her main a few times into a druid which in her words is not a healer.” Letting Grim’s ladylove, Will, play her rogue was both a break and a curse. I watched again and again as Will (and others) jumped out of the healing aoe just as the mass was landing then fail to stay alive.

Last night when Tobril and I switched to our “little” people he let me know just how often I was jumping out of the mass about once every three mins. Lets just say it was a good thing I had a 30% xp pot running to cancel all the -10% no death bonus I lost us. ☹.

Lets see:

In Dust I fell on to the spike traps and when I tried to jump out I somehow triggered it 3 more time at 200 a hit 4 hits makes a very dead Javabot.

When running with the devils I went to move Phlor’s alt up, yes I was dual boxing his account, a part member pulled some glowballs right to Java’s unmoving body. That was not the last death in that run.

In Coal Chamber.. No I didn’t die. Nor did I get lost. Tobril? I don’t think he died either… But he was lost more then once.

Rainbow I, ate a 400+ point fireball just after I took a 100 point hit from something and I cast a Heal over time vs heal. Had I been at full I think I would have lived, but as I was on my first tic I was less then full and died.

RitSac: Earth grappled to death hard. Real hard! I was less then pleased.

I really like the Druid but I need to be faster on that heal I guess. When Java was a FvS his 3 key (the easiest one for me to push) was heal (quicken) Maybe it needs to be again.

All that said, but it was a good weekend. We did the first and second Web chains on EE for some it was new favor and on Streak. The TR train is shroud flagged again and I can go and solo them on hard or normal a few times before leveling to 19. Yes it is worth leveling to get some 21s for ToD flagging on elite so I can be once and done with all of them but Sins.

Any way how is your timing when it comes to jumping out of the melee?

<3s

Review Time

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So I have been simi focused on DDo for topics this last month, thereabouts. So lest do something different, Movie/Tv reviews.

Checking out my Neflix shipping history the last movie I got was Ted, so lets start there.

Ted: I really liked this movie. Thought it was funny and other then being a fairly straight line plot wise it was worth the time to watch it and who doesn’t love Flash Gordon?
I need some kind of rating system???? 4/5

Battleship: This was a sleeper for me. Like Ted I didn’t see this one until Netflix sent it to me. I really liked it. Again the plot was a simi straight line although I expected more Die Hard then what we got so there was a little bit of a plot change from what I was expecting.
4 .2/5

Thinking about it, all the movies on my recent watch list have been good. So lets skip to an out standing movie that you might not have seen.

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy: Just trust me. If you like those raunchy comedies like a American Pie/ Animal House vibe then this is a winner. It was the best Nexflix movie I have seen in 6 months at least.
4.8/5

Jumping over to instant streaming:

House of Cards: AMAZING! Just go see it. It and Suits are the best shows out right now. There are some minor minor issues I have sometimes like the background volume is a little to high for me and I can’t always easily get the main conversation.
5/5

Shameless (UK): Like those raunchy movies I ❤ this is a tv show that is the embodiment of raunchy goodness. Unlike most shows for me this one started off really high and then hung there and is slowly falling as the cast changed and the show had to adapt. That said I am still watching it, very slowly… s1 5/5 s4 3.5/5

On 3rd thought there is some amazing hotness on the show that would not be as key of a role had the cast not had their adjustment.. . But British chicks are hot.

I have been watching al kinds of crazy Docs also but Netflix doesn’t want to show my history so I can’t name any atm. But the last 2 were one about building an original Wright flyer to see one fly today and another about hidden planets in our solar system including a possible failed Dwarf star. Both of which I thought were educational. If not entertaining.

What do I NEED to watch that I might not have seen?

<3s