Author Archives: samiusgurobo

Sam is Ready to Burn, Again

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Not the first thing I did when I got home. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t even in the top 5 things, but one of the first things I did once I got home was get Samius all ready to TR. Guess I decided I was going to TR him again next. Maybe the desire to finally cross off completionest from my list has gotten to me. But taking a look back at my other posts I think I had decided a long time ago that I was ready to take a break TRing Sam and get into the end game for a while.

So Java’s TR will have to wait. I still have a few levels to get on Darth Samius before I can TR a Non-Samius alt. Sam doesn’t have to follow the rules like everyone else does.

Build… I have talked about that in the past plenty but a lot of that was maybes or I might tries but I think I will do a 18/2 wiz/rog AM build thinking Evocation.

Note to Self: I need to remember to confirm that the Sorc past life feat will work to meet the prereqs for Archmage.

If you remember from a few posts back I was thinking about going Dwarf for their sweet beards and I had two possible stat lists I think I will do the one with the higher Chr of the two.

Rough Gear thoughts: My 7 finger gloves are ready to rock, so a I am good to strap the armor back on. Hell I might get a little PRR even. I have been siting on a set of blue dragon scales. Also I checked last night and I have 2 full tome page sets now so a skiver might happen at 14 as well.

Well I assume I will have something to feel content with on Monday, A phone call with Tobril earlier today pointed to a TR happening tonight. Wish me fast xps.

<3s

Ready to Be Home

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While i had lots of fun these last few days and i learned a lot so good stuff for work, i am just ready to be home. I miss my fam and dog, and i am just ready to fall away from the trends i am already seeing post election day and get back into game.

I haven’t made a lot of decisions on what is next for me in game. But i can say i have narrowed it down to Java TRing in to a druid, or taking Sam thru a his first life with the completionest feat avable.

Seems silly not to get Samius to a place where i can take some personal time and just do end game stuff. Glinn kept asking me questions about how i felt about the “end game” and i didn’t have an answer better then ” I don’t know”… So taking that time might be a good idea..

Am i done TRing Sam? This whole TRing path for me started as a way to better my spell pen and free up some feats.But i only have only gained one more spell pen from when i started. maybe one more FvS life is in order? Or maybe i have spent so long TRing i don’t know how to do anything else?

sigh….

well i have all day today to sit and wait on my way home, maybe i will arive home in more ways then just one…

❤

Jerry Spawned

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Today i have a little more time to post i think so i am going to try and talk about something Jerry brought up a few days plus back. If you take out my (your) personal likes/dislikes what builds would really make the most of completionest, from the point of view of past lives and the completionest feat.

I dont think that is what he knew he was asking, but that is how i took his comment.

Just today i am just going to look at classes and not really mixes too much.

Artificer, I think this one class might be the single best class for a completionest. There really use every stat to some degree, the only real completionest perk that i can think of that an Arty doesn’t really use would be the spell pen. They might not need the bonus to combat DCs but everyone CAN try and trip sometimes.

Barb, This is a case of making the key needs of the barb sing just a little more. Bigger Str, more HP, bonuses to combat DCs if they go that way. But they leave a lot on the table. Although the completion feat could make using silver flame pots easier….

Bard, would be in my top 3 or 4 classes to take real advantge of the completionest feat. The less focus that you have the greater effect of running threw the lives.

Clr, would be my second best class for post completionest. The boosts really make a huge difference for those that want to stradle both caster and melee roles. And the best class after arty that can do this is Clr.

Druid, I think everyone needs to take the time to level a few druids. Or at least try playing with a “melee” and a “caster” verson. I think that a hybrid build is very do-able and the free perks from having a ton of lifes really help. Remember i played Samius’ Druid life as a hybrid model and i am super impressed, to the point that real soon Java is TRing into one.

FvS, One could make a hybrid model, but really the class doesn’t NEED a lot of help.

Fighter, see barb.

Monk, would be on the short list for post completionest love, again due to the long list of good that the free feats allow. But again there are a lot of the past life feats that are pointless. But the monk is one of the classes that really put the completionest stat bonuses to work in ways other then a skill point or a +1 str +1 con.

Pally, See monk but even more so. The extra stats are huge. Same with the skill bonus. Unlike the major melee classes they can put some of the caster past life feats to work. Not all but more then any “core” melee classs so far.

Ranger, see Pally and monk and put ranger in the middle of the two. Less then pally but more then the monk. The stat boost is not as helpful but alot of the past life free feats are helpful.

Rogue, This one is hard. At cap i think it is right with the other melees (again yes rogue is a melee class) but while leveling they make the completionest feat is very strong helping to get to watermarks sooner.

Sorc, See FvS but less people have melee as a sub focus so all the melee related perks are more of a waist then for fvs. But it can help with DCs and we all know that arcaine builds are all about the big DCs.

Wizard, see all of the above. Unless you have a melee sub focus lots of work is going unloved, but even more so then sorcs, beacuse DC often wins over everything. The difference between 50 and 51 on wail/finger DCs can be huge.

So now that i have all that i will say, if you have a guy that is close to completionest but not a final build at least when looking at playing a single class think about making the best multitool you can.

❤

Five Things I Learned at Turbine HQ

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Today, a few hours ago really, thanks to Glinn, Tolero and Jerry I got to take a peek at the dreamland and now i give you five of those facts!

5, All Turbine employees must wear the same “company” shoes. They are black with a glowing bunny on them.

4, They have full time guard to ward off the Spanish Inquisition. Who says no one expects them?

3, There are giant floating pretzels. Didn’t see any cheese pools, however.

2, there were lots of cool toys, but most of them were on Tolero’s desk. Including the Mimic, who i tried to kill for the phat lootz, but Tolero keep spaming heals.

and the final thing i learned….

1, They have a huge “fish bowl” (it takes up a large section of one wall) full of people and shining lights. I didn’t see a single fish.

Alright guys, back to election coverage. Hope my guys wins and if you are rooting the the same guy i want your to win, if your rooting for the other guy, sorry but i hope your guy looses.

Anyway as always,

❤

Quicky from the Road

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So i am in Boston this week for UI17. And i am learning a few things that wont do you as readers any good unless i move off my.ddo. Which i don’t plan on doing, for now at least. But i only have a few mins before the second half of today’s work shop restarts so i don’t have time to write you long post, yet. I will try to write something between my day ending and heading out to meet up with Jerry and the guys.

Anyway, lets do some ddo content.

I got a donnation from a player that is hanging up the game or at least stepping down to a part time player status. So while we are loosing a brother, he game me some of his stuff to giveaway. like a going a way party, but with out him…

So if you are on Sarlona and want to try to get some good/cool stuff leave me a question or a topic you want me to rift on and i will enter you in a drawing to get one/some of these goodies.

If your not on Sarlona, sorry no loot for you but i will use your topics. 🙂

Okay speaker just started
❤

Break Out your Checkbooks!

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Its Movember and the Defense Guild is hairless, facial hair anyway. I am getting older and frankly my health and the health of my father and grandfather has awakened me to some of the larger health concerns facing men today. I am just years away from some doctor wanting to look in my butt. We need better options before then for sure!

So like I said the DG has shaved and will be growing badass moustaches threw the month, both to raise awareness over all and to raise whatever cash we can. Here is our team page:Team Defense

Anything you can kick this way will make a huge difference. Who knows someday this money you donate today might be the difference in saving someone you loves life.

So now a story so you can know my shaved pain.

Last night I broke out my beard trimmer and a razor and went to town. I haven’t had a clean face in more then 13 years. The amount of hair has waxed and waned but I have always had some hair on my face. This last year even I have been really going for the BIG BEARD look. I want to braid it like how Samius has his in all the great artwork Clankenbeard has done for me over the years.

So I walk out of the bathroom, post shave, and my son (who has never seen me beardless) starts to laugh. After a moment or two my wife hearing his laugher calls out from the game room making comments just from his bubbling laugher. After a few minuets of the boy giggling he tells me I “look weird.” And returns to laughing.

I head to the game room and sit down next to the wife on the couch to watch a show and she starts laughing/freaking out. I guess I look “10” years younger. Not sure how that works as again beard for the last 13 years…

For the rest of the night and into this morning any time my wife has looked at me she starts to giggle and tells me how I am freaking her out. Just that over and over!

I guess that is not true, she also covered her eyes once and told me she hopes I wouldn’t be offended if she stopped looking at me when we talk.

Please if you have a spare dollar or two, make my pain worth wild and kick what you can to our Movember donations. Again that website is: Team Defense

❤

As I Predicted

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Last night went down more or less as predicted. I was slightly off on how much xp I still needed to cap out. End of rank 95 is cap not hitting 95. So I needed a little more xp then that. A few IQ runs with Tobril, a failed solo run (which I will blame on Mabar lag, and not on my own miss play allowing the dungeon to red skull) and a quick pass through the Vale and a few stops in Shaverath.

I had time to work in a few encounters with the ghost dragon, both times my group won. And I got one scale but I kept hearing about people claiming to have gotten a few per run. But after a little bit of farming I don’t think that the hold up will be scales but motes…. I drank a Drought of night (not easy to find btw) and did a little solo farming in the 16-20 zone. Think I got about 1k in that hour. The wife did 2 hours of farming and got a lot more then I did per hour. I will have to do better to night.

I need to come up with a want list and an order of importance queue so I can form a plan for what I “need” to farm and what to buy when I start to run out of time.

So lets look at the important person first Samius:
Wants:
Lvl 24 Robe and maybe cloak.
Have:
Lvl 20 robe, cloak, lvl 8 wraps

Plan…. Maybe level the cloak up from 20 to 24. Looking at my caster past lives I mostly used the Reaver napkin, Mantle or wretched twilight. And with Epic GH on the way I am hoping that the Napkin becomes wearable post 20. The robe I can see being used a lot post 20 if I go PM. Enough that I want one at 20 and the bigger one at 24, so new robe is on the list.

Samyus:
Haves: Nothing
Wants: ??? maybe the cloak. 10/good dr is nice the purple set he is wearing now has 5/- so a boost but I see the Adamantine Cloak of the Bear being better over all so I don’t think I am going to bother.

Java:
Haves: Not real sure.
Wants: As he is about to TR into a druid, I want to be sure he has a nightshield clickly before the event is done. But other then that he is good.

400:
Haves: Docent lvl 20
Wants: Wouldn’t suck to have a lvl 24 robe as he did do the race change thing and no longer has the option to use the docent. But he is ½ locked in to the spidersilk robes for now. But I think I will try and make him a 24 robe.

Darth Samius:
Haves: None
Wants: The FR challenge cloaks are just better for my melees and I am leaning towards making him an epic Roc Cape anyway, so nothing for him.

Samiusjr:
Haves: None
Wants: Again the NightShield clicky wouldn’t suck. And I have ½ a plan to TR him either back in to a monk or more likely in to my bowonk build. If I don’t make him some wraps I will kick myself for not making them. If I do I wont end up playing him. That is how I roll.

I can’t think of anything any of the other “main” alts would want really and they just don’t get the play that the above get or would get.

Samiusbot, some day Arty doesn’t need much more then what he has. Butters, the nature of her build makes her gear light. And any of my divines don’t really need the Mabar gear.

So it looks like 1 or 2 level 24 robes for the PMs, an upgrade on Samius’ cloak and a couple of lvl 8 robes for the clickly. And if I happen to have the time; a set of the wraps 20 or level 24 whatever I can afford..

Have you made a list yet, or are you just farming now and will sort it out later?

❤

The End is in Reach

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Even with the our ups and downs last night which I will get into some, I can say the end for this life is clearly in reach. Last night I logged off about 60k from cap. If all else fails I can solo that with a vale/shaverath explorer run and a few runs of “Raiding the Giant’s Vault”. So I can easily finish up to night right on schedule. If Mabar fires up today or tomorrow, then I can take the next few days farming that and be ready to TR when I get back from a business trip that will keep me out of town most of next week.

So this last pre completionist life is all but done.

Lets jump into last night’s story a little bit. I log in a little later then normal but I took the time to eat so I would need to stop for a dinner break. Tobril normally has plans on Monday nights and I wanted to maximize the xp we could earn in with his normally short playtime. Turns out that he is online and waiting for me; the little turd played hooky from work and didn’t tell me.

We buff up and decide to hit the IQ. On the way it dawns on me that Tobril made a comment about liking to run that first silver flame quest on the path to FR. So I bring it up and we run it real fast.

Then we hit IQ. Let me first say now that Sam has the human thing in the monster manual I can see their hps. And on elite I became degusted with the amount of hps on simple trash mobs. I saw at least 2 with 4k+ hps. Trash wizards had 3kish. It is no wonder how they do 100+ point magic missile attacks they are level 400. Frack me. Sometimes not knowing is a blessing.

Anyway the IQ goes smoothly until we enter Jeets and start on the front of the mine. I zerg off trying to clear the way and beat Jeets to the dreamy ploots! You know if you loot the treasure before him the end fight has a lot less spawns to deal with right? Anyway I zerg off and bam bam take two 395ish point rocks to the head and die…. WTF? Then things start going down hill. I get rezed but Tobril and Stiner get blown into some spikes. I tell them to go ahead and slow down we are already behind and we need to just not die a ton. Moving along we have another slip up, moving along the little path that is not 100% where the graphic says it is and we start rezing getting ready for the fight, which starts before we are ready. And all hell breaks loose. I am almost down to scrolling and wanding people. And things are a mess. But we push on.

Then on the way to the spa shrine I end up in the spa fight proper. So we end up doing that fight next. Which goes well for being buff less and low on stuffs. Moving on we do the back door to the bar and then the bar. We don’t stand in the best spot until late in the fight and we end up taking turns restoring massive amounts of Chr damage over and over again. But finally we win out.

Oddly enough, the final fight goes the smoothest not taking very long at all.

The boat quest also runs fairly smoothly.

We try to do Mindsunder twice before deciding to just skip it we just kept over pulling in places. 5-10 guys are fine. 11+ when ½ of them are casters/neg levelers is my tipping point.

That is when Tobril and I get our heads back in the game and clean up our play. Moving along the back end of the IQ we make good time and that is when I notice that I am way over my set playtime for the night and log to hang with the wife some before bed.

Over all we got a lot of xp in a fairly short time frame. Assuming Tobril kept on after I left he should be in range of finishing up as well. Soon I will need to make some choices as to what I need to work on next. Samius could go and sit on his laurels for a while assuming his Spell Pen is good enough to not need to waist feats on them. Or I could take and TR Java into my druid, a role that I think he will be perfect to fill. This is Tobril’s last TR for while I think. Although he has plans to TR one other guy to change race now that WF suck real bad.

Any way I need to get some work done. Have a great day.

❤

My Name is Samius and I am the 31%

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It was a long but good weekend. You can see part of the fun threw Grim’s eyes on her DDoblog. But that only part of this lasts weekend’s story. It was XP time baby!

I was going to roll things back along the week but I am having issues remembering everything. So lets just say Litany was amazing as always. And she left me wanting more. And a bit of aside, I need to start calling my wife Litany so if I cry out in my sleep she will think I am dreaming about her. Man, Litany is the xp.

Saturday was Remmie’s (the boy’s) 13th birthday. Now he is a man if only he would act like one instead of running around and hugging his parents. On another aside I need to pick up a stun gun to keep him in check…. He will be as tall if not taller then me soon and as a father I need to be ready to fight dirty if necessary to maintain power.

So the wife and I had a bit of a short day to hang out with the Brits. But later that night Xp happened. Can’t say what we did or how much it was such a whirlwind. Also we had a few of the boy’s friends over and lets just say that party went late into the night while the wife and I hid in the game room and played. But Tobril and I had leveled to 18 at the end of the night.

Most of Sunday went as planed.

Raided with the Brits even if that meant doing a few more jobs at once then I was used to doing. Ie tanking both Horroth and Sully in ToD. Over all I think loot wises we had a good weekend. Tobril got at least 3 scrolls, Grim’s lady friend (Trapping- which I feel is strange nick name. I never saw her on a rogue, no were any of her alts name even close to Trapping and I think her TeamSpeak name was something like Willowing?? Will need to find a good nickname for her soon.) Got the Von Shield and my wife kicked her the shard for it. I got a the Demon’s Consort Bracers shard for myself in DQ and on the first 6 man flagging I got a Xuum shard which after asking if anyone had a need for it. Tobril said he had been looking for it as he has everything ready to go to make one for his CLr. And the wife said she would like it but had nothing for it. Like a fool I passed it to Tobril. Who can put the think to use any time and I should have passed it to the wife to sit in her bank forever to collect dust. To make it up to her on the second 6man flag we did I passed her my epic fragments. I only had to sleep with one eye open for a little while last night.

Once the Brits where done for the night, we had a fast lunch break and got back to the xps. Thought we would be able to wrap up the xp for this life last night. But as we only really had like 3 hours that was really ambitious. We did a lot of Enter the Kobolds and Monastery runs. And I logged at rank 93 and tobril about 30k behind still at 92. He is still mad that he let his xp pot run out during Kobold’s New Ring Leader and swears that is why I am still ahead. I think there is some of that in it, but I think it had more to do with me running in game 10s and him only using 20s, but I have more first time quests where I don’t loose my ship buffs. I am really good at Litany for example. ☺ So most of the time I am not that much behind despite the pot difference so when I do drink a 20 on high xp/min quests I make some gains.

But earning big xp during with a big bonus is real nice. Now if we can cap by Tuesday that should give me a little Mabar time before my trip next weekend.

<3s

PMs Rule! AMs Drool! Or Do They?

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I have been a fan of the PM longer then I think most people know. I was on the PM bandwagon from day one. Before live even, lets say Lam day one. You can go back and check the tapes, but I back on DDocast I described Lich form (back when it was a clicky) as god-mode.

But back when epics were a hold-fest I took on of my wizards and reset him to be an Enchantment AM and it was fun. Not the most amazing build I ever had but fun. Then we had the change to Mass hold monster vs SR and later the change to allow removal spells in epics and I no longer have an AMs.

But I think that might be wrong, at least during the heroic levels. Or I should say pre Lich form….

My break down of PMs:
Undead Forms, are really just a way of saying I will take care of myself until Lich form when being undead becomes more then a self healing perk. Sure each one has an upside and a down side beyond use Sp to get HP. But you don’t see many level 20+s running around in Vamp or Zombie form do you? Before I leave forms I want to rank them from best to worse real fast. Lich, wrath (almost a tie with Lich), zombie, vamp. Some of you might have seen that coming, but others maybe not. But wrath form is really under loved atm, if you have the feats and the points take them both and think about what form would be best for a given quest. I will bet a lot of the time 2 less dcs will be over powered by 25% incorp and +20 to move silently and balance, if your looking at shorting the time in quest. Also getting wrath at 12 vs 18 is huge bonus.

Pets, they have a time and place. But I have a hard time finding points to spend on them. However, the thrill of summing a normal skeleton in a quest with mob skeletons and watching your party members try to kill it is amazingly fun times. Otherwise they are mostly for times when you can perch them and have them range things with out getting hurt while you afk.

Necro Stuff, to me other then the self-healing in form the best part of the PM is Nerco attacks. I use them more then any other attack spell. They are like 4-6 on my quick bar and often I just cycle them when I am in damage mode. More then once I have had to leave form so I could be fleshly healed by a party member while I cleared the room with these attacks.

AMs on the other hand have the ability to be extremely flexible as there is not a clear set path you have to take. You can just run up the line netting you more Sp at each AM tear.

Quick aside: Speaking of those tears there are 5 tears of AMs (every 3 lvls after 6) vs 3 for the other PRE. Mening that you get those tears much faster with splashes then the other PREs. Example, with the PM if I do 18/2 at level 18 (16/2) I still only have PM 2 but with AM I could have 4 tears of the PRE.

Arcane Booms, The AM only gets 2 low costs spam attacks Blot/Blast. They use sp vs hp for their cost but with out the aura doing the constant healing you wouldn’t want to be burning hps anyway. I think the Pms might have it a little better in the cheap spam attack department but I think the AMs being force damage are good too. Hell some PRE’s have run on water as a tear 2 power, force blots are a huge step up.

The Meat of the AM PRE, spell like abilities. Some Schools are better then others at different levels. But over all I think they are mostly good but not worth going too deep into. Do you really need a Pk or a DD SLA at level 15? Not really. That said some of the schools really have some good ones depending on play style.

What am I going to do? Think I am going to try leveling up as an AM. Last time I leveled up a PM I skipped to 16 and while I found 1-9 to be fairly easy as normal. Trying to use the forms just as the mobs really started in on the light damaging spells in a 3-4 party group keeping an elite streak running to be crazy. Opps here is 400+ points of light damage, Splat!

Will I switch back to PM post lich form? Most likely. Also I think I will do evocation focus while leveling with a plan to play a little more aggressive. But keep in mind I have all the toys and all the perks of completionest so I can handle my healing with out having to use my SP.

If this was my first arcane/wizard I would say be a PM. But I would warn you that you don’t always want to be form.

In any case I am sure I will talk about how things are playing as we relevel and into the post 20 endgame, so things might change or not but either way I will let you know.

❤