Let me say Tobril is my best mate. He was my best man. When I have issues I talk them out with him. I started playing Ddo because he played and as he moved 7 hours away it was one of the only ways to hang out together. So in a way you can thank him for CtH, this blog everything that I have done for the Ddo community.

All that said he can be a jerk. So can I so it is not a big deal. 🙂

Last night, once I figured that the wife was not going to log on. I set the TR train up for some xp I knew she didn’t really want to bother with. And that was smooth and as fast as you can expect. With the xp pots running, xp tomes, and bravery bonus I made a 1k a min in most runs. Man some quests are just bad xp.

Anyway after that I talked the group into helping Phlor get the last bits for his sigil frame. He needed 1,2,4, and some randoms. So of to Vol. Tobril and Fopo on their casters ran off and did the quest while Phlor and I got the traps “for the xp” not to stay out of their red skulling path…. everyone passed their pieces and all we needed was the piece from Fleshmakers and Ghosts.

Right here Fopo decided his lag was killing his good time and logged for the night.

So we had to melees and our wizard. Off to Fleshmakers. We are zerging along everything is going well until that named golem with the apprentices.

Last time we were here I cleared the apprentices and had the golem to about a 1/3 left when out of no where Tobril disintegrates him. Not this time. I run past everything invisible. Start the fight, kill 2 of the 4 apprentices stone one and stun the other and get started on the golem. Phlor shows up and kills an apprentice. And I almost have the named dead.. BAM! That little SoB did it again. 2 for 2 time this life. We laughed and had a good time.

That is why he is my best mate. He totally remembered that he snipped me last time and he waited this time to snipe me again. What a wanker!

I am so going to snip the hell out of him next time I level up a caster and he is on a melee….:)

Side Note* I have one PAX code to give away atm. If you want it, Rank this post AND leave a comment that includes a short story about your best mate. I will roll for a winner on Monday.

❤

Before last night I hadn’t earned any xp on Samius is 4 or 5 days. I try not to out pace the alt the wife is playing and generally keep the Tr Train together.

So last night when the wife was able to play again (guess there was nothing wrong with her pc… or so the shop claims.) Fopo’s family has left town, and Tobril has a quite few hours before the on call phone starts ringing again. I thought alright Xp time. And at this level 16-17 that means litany, litany, litany , litany, litany, litany, litany, litany, litany, litany, litany. Did I say litany?

With the four of us the quest went smoothly (elite btw). The Vol optional had an issue on the the other hand. Someone or a couple of someones was running way ahead pulling a large number of mobs, running past the necessary keys keeping the alert fairly high. But not at and unmanageable level, just melees in the back and zerging casters in the front. Until the wife asks for a sonic in chat. After a min or two I ask if she has gotten her buff. She answers negative, and I pull out a wand. Just then Fopo back petals into the room with myself and the wife, swears about hating undead and dies right in front of me. I take it he was scrolling the mobs and not himself when he died.

So he looses agro and the 10 or so mobs he had on him shift targets plus the 5 or so we already had. And I get hit by a sound burst. Something I have noticed while playing Samius; he will roll more 1s against a sound burst then any thing else ever. This time was no exception. Stunned.

Now I have been playing Samyus, his AC is about 72 or about 7 more then normally buffed Samius. I can swap weapons and change stances and get to 69 but that is not my normal setup.

Ten seconds of being stunned and I was smoked. If I didn’t know any better I would have sworn that Torrance diploed the trash on to me.

A quick rez, and rebuff and we were off again but there was a hick up. Go to smash the green crystals and Tobril has zoning in issues. We break stuff anyway and he Dcs.

He comes back and we start a hard run. Again he has zoning in issues and we complete the run and the optional before he gets back.

And the wife is done after those two quests… Big xp?

Fine I will save the rest of litany until tomorrow. And we Fopo and I (Tobril is still DCed) do Missing. Tobril gets in before we complete because we planed to run the chain. But after Missing Fopo is done…Big xp?

No big deal, Tobril and I will keep the train rolling. And step in to the warehouse quest and he repeats his stuck in loading screen/Dc issues. And I give up, frustrated.

Thanks for reading, hope your game is smoother then mine was last night.

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Last night it was just Fopo and I from the TR train. Think Phlor was on but not replying in chat… Once I got on Fopo had already decided to Solo OOB on his off train alt. So looking around I decided to try to solo elite Litany (with a healbot).

If you have never ran Litany, let me tell you it is a great little quest. Lots of easy to kill but big damage dealing mobs, with lots of variety. Lots of tweak skills traps to dodge. But they don’t take tons of skills to be honest. And then a classic dnd riddle instead of a final fight. But then after the quest is done there is more…. Just a great quest. If your skipping it for some reason, don’t.

Anyway; I pop in on my fighter. And summon my nanny bot. For three reasons, one it had 5 mins left on it, two because there is a mini fight were the “boss” had an aura that does stat damage and I figured it would be easier to have the healer use the heal spell then to try to drink lesser restore pots. Not that I couldn’t have… And three longer then 5 min deathwards….

The run goes smooth until my hireling gets quelled, and dies fighting an gargoyle. 😦 I dismiss and keep moving. I complete with no issues after that.

Then I think… Well I can try for a boss. If nothing else I can net a fast 3-4k extra xp and then jump out if it is too hard. Well moving along and my clickly death ward runs out real close to a shrine. As soon as it is gone I take a zillon negs and fail a slay living. Grrrr. But the shrine……. Having some cakes from the egg hut I self rez and get to the shrine. But the bats in the room spawn and the alert goes orange and I get stunned and beaten to death. Rez off the shrine and worry about my AC and HP first things. Cleave the bats down but I start having issues with the vamp divine in the room. So I step out to heal up and the trash out side the room notices me and joins the fun…

I spend 5 mins running around a pillar in the room with the shrine. Potting up and then working on a vamp or two then moving when I see a vamp casting. It was rough but after a few neg levels come and go I clean the room. And shrine.

Hurrying along I net my bonus xp finally. Only taking 5 or 6 mins longer then I planed. Not to mention all the pots and the rez cake.

Get to the end fight clear the trash and I start working on the high priest. But I can’t keep up with his regen and drink pots. Out comes a store hireling, and she helps. But as soon as I summon her the high priest starts to spam greater command. Switching to my spell absorption item I get a till time to try and weed him down while keeping repawning trash down. But it runs out and I am on the ground again….

To the store again, this time for an arcane to help with his regen. Get everything rolling and almost at the same time I get commanded, the divine gets held and the arcane gets tripped by a dog or something. The hirelings die. Looking at the priest’s health shows him full.

Finally it hits me, I am in over my head and port to the market.

Had I left at the first death I would have saved a ton of time and resources. I could have ran Litany on hard and normal and then ran the optional bosses on normal or even casual. Not like there is loot in the optional bosses’ chests anyway.

Often I will push through or try to push through regardless of the cost because of personal satisfaction. Hey I like saying things like my TR train did elite Tor all dragons at level. Or my fighter soloed X on elite. But sometimes you have to know when to throw in the towel and cut your losses.

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So this weekend was very strange. I took off work a half hour early to watch the new American Pie movie. And I totally loved it. Think I have said it before but I am a fan of these kind of movies. If you liked the first two or all the rest like myself then you will like this last one.

Friday night after the movie, there were not a lot of peeps online so the wife and I ended up questing alone on our off train alts. My fighter Samyus (lvl16) and her Sorc (lvl17), looking at the possible quest list we decided to do Missing. That might not have been the best call but I figured it would be do able. 77 mins and 2 cakes later we won. On the plus side I think I have it down in side and out now. And that was more or less Friday night.

Saturday, I knew bad weather was going to be heading our way in the afternoon so we spent the morning with a run to the store and doing some yard work, moving plants getting some projects tied down and whatnot. But when the storm didn’t hit on time, we ran to the hardware store to buy some piping. I have and idea to turn and old trampoline in to a green house. So while we were out is when the storm rolled in, and I forgot my pipes. We needed up buying stuff for other projects but not the items for what I am working on.

That night was hard, Torrance wanted to stream netflix and I wanted to Ddo some, normally that is not an issue but lately we have been having issues. And checking my email/twitter is hitting ddo real hard. Streaming Netflix becomes a 30 secs of normal play and 20+ secs of total lag out over and over again for who ever is playing Ddo. 😦 Think at least some of our internet issues comes from a loose hanging phone cord wiping around in the wind. And the last two days were super windy.

But even so Fopo and I were able to team up and do Inferno with our off train alts. Have I said that Ac is cool lately?

Btw, more then 100 tornadoes touched down in Kansas Saturday night. I said F it and went to bed simi early.

Sunday we go out and clean things back up. No damage to speak of for my house. I haven’t hear from my renters yet and they had a tornado just a mile or so away touch down. But my sister in law didn’t have any damage and she is just down the street from my rental. So I am thinking we are all good here.

Go to log on after lunch and the wife’s computer doesn’t work. Do a little trial and error and it is not anything I can fix. But I lost most of Sunday to that.

So like I said it was an off weekend. Maybe if I am lucky when she takes her computer in it will be a quick fix and then we can get her going again. And then if I can get the phone company over to look at our system and get things fixed back up because two weeks ago we could both play, stream a show/movie and do some web surfing with no issues, that is what I am paying for that is want I expect.

Anyway back to Ddo talk tomorrow.

❤

I don’t know about you but I live a strange place in between I need the right tool for the job and the want of a good multi tool. I bring this up because some resent email chains between some of my guildies. They totally believe in having the right tool for the job at all times.

I totally understand where they are coming from but I remember learning my lesson. Back in one PnP campaign I had a sword caddy hireling that more or less just stayed behind me and handed me the right sword for what ever mob I was facing off against. I remember one fight where I think the DM totally set me up. I would often send out a sword at a time to be “upgraded”. Say my +1 undead bane sword would go out and I would get it back +1 acid of undead bane. And so on. I don’t remember the details, but I had just sent out my sword to fight a given monster. Say my flaming sword to get Flaming Burst-ed for a troll. When I realized what had happened it was a good laugh for the whole group. And a running joke during that campaign.

So I just want to quickly skim the contents of my typical golf bag.

Boss beater/s – silver(cold iron)/good aligned/if lucky baned
Portal beater – this doubles as my construct killer
Undead weapon
Trash weapon
Defensive weapon – like a bodyfeeder or vamp or both…(When possible I combine this into my normal Trash weapon)
Multi tool melee – in most of my cases it is some kind of Ghost touched Flame touched maul of everbright.
Multi Tool ranged – Depends on the build a lot.
Glow ball killer – this is my only real unitasker. (and only for one quest 😉 )

Do I keep a few other weapons handy depending on the build? Yes but not many. My fighter had a vorpal sword before I got him to his slayer ring. And I am sure I still have banishers on some some guys… But for the most part if they don’t fit in that list then I don’t have it.

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Dumb is too strong… how about bull headed?

So last night I had a clear plan. Get the needed goblets to finish my bracers send things to Samyus upgrade them, switch to Samius and see about earning a few crafting levels and try and make a +2 dodge shard to go onto said bracers. Finish the last little bit of xp needed to level Samyus to 16. Win/Profit…

Getting the goblets takes two runs. Think I am finally getting the hang of it. I still don’t know why I was having so much troubles getting all the key bits before on some of the first runs, but I get right around 200 cups a run at level 19. I don’t know if it is the level difference from 19 to 20 or some scaling but it seems that on 19 alone there is about half the trash spawns. Which is both good and bad.

Move on to passing everything over to Samyus and making the final tear. No problem there. Jump out to GH and get the last 10 explorers and out to the Orchard for 5 or 6 explorers there and level up to 16. Plus one more AC.

Swap to Samius, turns out my Elemental crafting was 78. So I only need 12 – 13 levels to grind out for a 50% shot at making my Dodge +2 shard. After 30 mins of making shards and breaking them down for bits I end up with my shot. Bam first try: Consumed: 21 Greater Air Essences, 224 Lesser Air Essences. Created: Shard of Dodge +2!

Switch to Samyus run to the bank and alter. Add the shard, Fail…. Max level achieved??? Try again. Same error. Run to the decon alter, clear the item run back. Same error. Then I look. Bracers of Wind have +3 crafting. Dodge +2 is a level 4 shard. Frack!

Okay jump back to Samius, make a +1 dodge shard and back again. That was my back up plan after all. Add it to the bracers with no issues. Try to equip, can’t? They are now level 20. Doh!

I knew that adding powers to the Cannith items raises or lowers the level. Yes you can lower the level with a Masterful Craftsmanship shard if you want to and don’t add anything else….

So I end up clearing the item again so I can use them now. Buy a new store trinket add the +2 dodge. So ended up with +2 more Ac about 2 hours of time wasted trying to add +2 dodge to the bracers and waist I don’t even know what a dodge +1 shard costs. But right now Samyus has a 70/71 self buffed Ac. Using items/feats that are not that hard to come by. Okay the crafting stuff can take awhile but other then that nothing is super duper hard to do.

Ran a Pop with Phlor afterward to flag him for Tor. I have ben having issues with the router lately. Fairly sure it is going out again. Someone needs to call AT&T and get a new one sent. But it plays Ddo fine as long as one person is playing or just is playing. But the wife is watching Battle Star Galactica while I am trying to do all this. So there is a lot of 5 seconds of play 5 secs of freeze. So it was frustrating but I could be totally lagged out with mobs all over me but I was almost untouchable. That is a good feeling. Now I just need to do the same at cap in Elite/Epic raids???

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We caught started late on out Tuesday epics last night. Mainly because I wanted to get some more challenges out of the way for Samyus’ Bracers of Wind. I think Monday I talked a little about his current AC of 71 with Phlor’s Pally Aura hitting for 2 or so. And did a rough over view of how his Ac is fairly good for his level. Well today I want to go over my rough plan for the next few levels. And maybe even touch on cap some.

Dodge bonus is the biggest X factor in Ac today. There are only a handful of ways to get more dodge bonus and most of them take up a slot all on there own. But with some planing and a lot of work anyone can work them in now thanks to the New crafting system and challenge turn-ins.

Right away at 16 Samyus can swap to the Bracers of Wind for a gain of one. And I will have to see but I hope to boost my elemental crafting into range of the +2 dodge shard. Think right now I am 90ish/80ish/70sih in the different schools. Arcane/Divine/Elemental… Which is good enough to make the +1 dodge shards but to far way from the +2 to try right now. Think you have to be with in 10 to try to make a shard. Want to day the +2 dodge shard is level 99… So I might have to live with putting the +1 on the bracers for now. Which will be find in the short term as my trinket slot is +3 nat armor/+1 dodge which as long as I am using the ranger past life feat the +3 nat armor is wasted. So it will open my trinket up to full time Bloodstone?

But that leaves me the goal of earning 400 more Jeweled Goblets in any case to go to tear 3. Speaking of challenge crafting; I think a will also need to make an epic Slayer Ring. Fully upgraded it keeps man-slayer. Removes the need for a Bloodstone or a Ghost touch weapon. And has two epic slots, colorless and a yellow. It is a crazy good ring.

I plan to use the eChimera’s Crown and Fang at cap. I need to decide if I want to go all out at cap and swap to the Sentinel marks at cap for the full bonus on the Fang or keep the travel marks (which I <3). I will already have one feat swap to remove the ranger past life feat. But with 4 planed Epic slots on “permanent” items there is a lot of wiggle room for stat items.

Anyway I need to really start looking at his final gear layout. And when I have a simi solid list you will get it and you all can comb over it with a fine tooth comb.

As always comments in the Comment box. And if you want more on my take on Ac and melee’s use that little ranking system.

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Well?Today’s title wasn’t just a title. It was a real question…. I will explain. Then use the comments and answer for me, okay.

Last night was a cry babyfest. Okay that was a little harsh, but not far from the mark. It started off with me tearing myself self up some because I failed a Dr. Rushmore (moving targets) run. Second one in a row, btw. Do to just not getting the right key things. I think it was mainly bad character choice, now that I am calm. I took Java. Who can not open locks. So there is two places I normally go for keys that I couldn’t. Then with 2 mins on the clock I am told about a boss in a room behind me. But it is one of those have to kill the elementals to get the boss. I tried to power through and just focus on the boss. But at about 3/4 life the guy would run away and he would be at full again by the time I got to him. At 60 secs I start to kill elementals and head in at 20 secs on the clock. But I am just not fast enough. 😦

Start my foul mood.

The TR train forms up, kinda surprisingly for a Monday. Fopo and Tobril both took the day off I guess… Looks like Tor time. I like Tor, a lot. Fast Xp. Good loot. Good challenge. Turns out Samyus needs crucible. Off we go for the 3 time on elite in so many days. Good thing I like this guest too. Nice and easy. Floor needs Madstone. I ask a few times to be sure that was all he is missing. But once we knock it out and pass around relics turns out he needs PoP too. But he doesn’t want to hold the train up anylonger and leaves group.

Tor, we move through the main quest quickly. There are a few accidental restarts of the end fight. But no big deal, until my rent a FvS dies with out me noticing I go for a heal and opps.. drink, drink drink. But it is not enough against those casters. And I croak leaving Tobril to handle our side alone. Which he does handily.

There is some decision about going for the Dragons on elite. I know Fopo, Torrance and I have had some fails and some wins going for the dragons on elite. We might not have had a win since I was a caster but that doesn’t feel right to me. Always feels like the last run was the one we won.

We struggle at dropping both the giant and the dragon at the same time. I think there was some miss management of some dot spells. And cometfall is a real trouble spell, wish it seemed that good when my divines use it. I call retreat and shrine up, as to not have to go to the pots to try a third attempt of killing them at the same time. 3 Dim doors fly open, I look around both bosses are heading my way and don’t see anyone else in the zone and take my DD. Turns out Torrance was just out of my sight. She falls and releases. So I decide not to try and do the dragons again on elite but go back after everyone gets to rebuff on hard. But we have a rage quit. Followed up with my own version of a “rage” quit.

Now for the bitching, I mean handling of others frustrations. Other then chewing my own ass for that fail to start the night. I have people complaining about other people via tells, via guild chat, over voice. People complain about having to redo content for others. People don’t like the settings I set the quest on or the optionals I want to do or not do. And so on.

Is everyone complaining to me or about me? No.
Does it feel like it? Fuck yes.
Are everyone’s complaints valid? Sure.

But if you don’t want to lead the group shut up. I ❤ everyone in my train/guild. I handle everyone’s little issues and I make the unpleasant calls that keeps everyone moving and more or less happy. But there will be nights were I am annoyed and my tolerance for whining will be lowered. And those nights I will happily strangle everyone in their sleep. I will be unhappy about it the next day but come on people your my other family.

So if you have any helpful advice please let me know. Because about 1 night a TR life something like this happens and I just want to strangle everyone and end up logging after 3 quests.

I leveled Samyus up to 15 over the weekend and I have to say how impresses with the ease a fighter can get a meaningful Ac if they bother. Last night I spiked to a 71 standing next to Phlor, while he was playing one of his 18hundred pallys.

So lets do a simple break down of the current setup.

+5 mith fulplate
+5 mith tower shield
+5 dex mod using +6 dex boost and one dex is currently wasted 😦
+5 natural from Bark skin. In my case past life ranger… for now.
+5 Combat Expertise
+3 Dodge 1 from Cannith crafting, 2 from Thaarak Bracelet
+3 Stance
+4 incite from an old GS rapier (there are some perks to having an old gimp to TR into something good)
+5 deflection

Wow, so hard…

Next level is a huge step up and will include the first item for this guy I will “grind” to get, Bracers of wind level 16 tear3 (ideally with +2 dodge added via Cannith). I am 3 or 4 good runs away from having everything I need. Tried real hard to take a couple of the Defense guys in to some of the challenges and some of them just went pear shaped. Might have to have Fopo help me out soonish.

On a side note I have been rocking that same suit of +5 mith full plat for a long time. It has a skin I really like and whatever I try to replace it with is a point or two of an AC loss. But I have been thinking I have a lot of black scales. Like almost 40, just on Samius alone. What? Mired in Koblods was fun on every class with a good Dot or three. 🙂 And is very fun to “tank” with your sorc throwing heal scrolls at you. :p

A while back I was going to make a suit of black scale for Butterz because it looked Tux like and with the top hat very pimpish. At least in my mind. But I never made her a suit because I went E Utility Vest in stead.

But on Samyus the black scale might be a minor enough of a hit that I can afford to take it. And it would give a super helpful heal clickly. I don’t take a lot (if any) real damage from melee attacks. But I do get blasted to hell from spells like freezing/lighting ball and laser rays. So when big damage comes in from casters a few pots/hams doesn’t always cut it. That heal clicky might be a plat saver. Something to think about until my Calvary plate comes on line at 20.

As all ways, Thoughts/Questions in the comments.

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So much to do this weekend. Xp bonus weekend and the Traveler is back so I need to go ahead and turn things in this time around. I have large piles of the different turn in stuff on all my different alts. Wish we could move that stuff to other Alts so I can just make all the runs on one guy, say my bard so I can quickly sell the trash. Regardless I will have to try making some runs and making up some TR losses to my plat pile.

I also haven’t done the taxes yet. I should say I haven’t stood around and watched the wife do the taxes yet. I have just enough dyslexia to scramble numbers real bad. And scrambled numbers is bad for taxes.

It was a nice last weekend and we ended up doing some planting, this weekend is looking like more of the same. I am worried that all this sunshine might convince the wife that we need to do some more planting. I have a chicken coop, compost bin and solar dehydrator to make yet to.

Plus I need to move/setup the aquaponics outside. I really want to see it do well this summer. Running it in the basement I think was just too cold. But I have a line on a few larger tanks so I can do a main tank with fish and a buffer tank to clean the city water easier in larger amounts so I can more easily do water changes if needed. But I will need to build a frame for that….

Lastly I am a huge fan of the coming of age movies. And my favorite movie series that embodies angst has a new release this weekend. American Pie. And there is no easier way to get me to pony up for a movie then put Alyson Hannigan in it.

Add all those things up, plus the holiday and this weekend will be a long one. Hope I can rise again in three days and be useful at work. 🙂

❤ and Enjoy the weekend.