I have no issues using the ddo store. In fact there are a number of items I am waiting to appear in the store that as far as I know are not even a twinkle in some marking exec eye, yet. But right now I want to talk about what might be coming.

I tend to error on the side of savings and buy points when they are on sale. Now I could make due with out buying any points but I have a little more disposable income that I can put to entertainment as most of my entertainment comes from Ddo and netflix.(Aka I stay home when ever possible.) And not as much time to play as I would like. So there is my trade off, a little cash for a little time saving and it happens to help get me content. Win Win.

I have noticed a bit of a trend. There is a big point sale then a week or two later good stuff either goes into the store or goes on sale. So I am wondering what will be the thing to buy this go around.

I just saw the pick your own discount. I often load up on Hearts of Wood and xp pots while there is one of these 30% off offers. Might get all my upcoming TR guys the pack space and the bank space…. Oh ad I need a name change or twooooo.

I want a few things returned before going nuts on my shopping list.

+5 hearts I want to take Samyus and make him my permanent bowonk. That will fit his original design goal well enough. But the best past life that I can get him for a life as a bowonk is not the wizard past life. At 10/6/1 right now with a level banked the best I can do with hearts in the store amt is take him to ranger school. Which is a fine feat and I might wish I had it but of the 3 classes I am right now Monk would be the biggest boon to the build.

+3 tomes, I know lots of people will have a cow when the +3s return. But with the upcoming retain tome through a TR change, I see their sales being better then ever. I know there are a few stats I would like to have a +3 in for Samius for the rest of his Trs, I had a few saved up but not a full set, Samyus has a full set of +1s and that is all.

There are one or two little things that quickly come to mind Humbug and Missle-toe are great. I ❤ Missle-toe so much I have a stack on Samius and a stack in the bank for then I run low. I would ❤ to have a stack on everyone that can’t wing around.

Of coarse there are more things here and there but as I am not a human ddo wiki, regardless of what Phlor thinks, so I better go.

❤

Last night epic Tuesday was back. The Team forms up for a epic Devils Assault and pugs a slot out to a much more dps driven War chanter bard. Not sure if he was just WC 2 I only saw him do the damage song and the DR song. Over all the run was very smooth. Tobril only killing 3 party members with his FvS healing and those were during boss fights, where those of us with sound followed normal protocols and cleaned up trash before moving on to the boss. Where our other no voice chat bard when right in on the boss and took agro vs letting the easier to heal better defensed Bowonk take it. Once she had it no one could take it away from her, and we where able to keep her up with baby heals.

We also zerged a quick Ebob. Which I guess was fairly good, as two scrolls dropped. Both to DG people that didn’t have that scroll. So win win. That is where Epic Tuesday ended and raid night began.

We swapped around and popped in to the waiting DQ 6 man and did a fast elite DQ. Moving my unloved Clr to run number 16. Guess I will have to get him to his disappointing 20th list in the next few weeks. Think I want to get him able to heal some of the 6 man epics….

Then Tobril offers ToD up for the next run. Sure why not, swap to SamiusJr for rings. I load up some Iron man comic I haven’t read yet via the Marvel digital reader (good as it has lots of books I haven’t read yet, bad as reading them on a phone or tablet doesn’t work right.)

Anyway, there happens to be a pug up already with 3 people and we decide to crash that group. The raid went super smooth. To the point where people wished we had done hard. But as that 3 or 4 rings dropped. I was more then happy. The Assassin ring when up for roll and I was the only one that rolled on it, win. Now I can add another burst effect and wait for my Shinto ring.

A swap again, and a Reaver goes up. Having not played my current character in a while I go in to lich form and forget to keep my aura running. Get low on health. Look for my Neg E burst. Find it. Cast it get hit and die. Quicken wasn’t on….. opps. Back to my Iron man comics. 🙂

It is about 9:30 I normally would have logged for the night long ago to watch something with the wife, but I am not feeling tired and decide to tag along for the shroud about to go up. I swap to my gimpy side project Samyus. He needs to cap out so I can TR him into a more worth wild build. Thinking my permanent Bowonk or Air Sorc. I need to decide soon because what he is going to be next will decide how to finish him out this life.

Surprisingly the run wasn’t too bad time wise, 26 mins. But we had captain super ass clown in the group so it was less pleasant then normal. But I did get a scale and I finished 3 books over the 3 raids.. Not a bad night all in all. Just not as epic as I normally hope.

❤

I think the reason you guys read these posts is the fact that I try to share my thought process, as well as my short comings along with my victories. Last night I gained the xp for 19. I don’t plan to take 19 any time soon but it does make me think about things I have been putting off.

What should this life count as? Currently Samius is 6/6/6 monk/ranger/fighter my Arcane Shintao Kensei Archer. I could go fighter or ranger. Fighter is full of good stuff, to hit and trip/stun dcs. Not that the ranger free past life feat is any worse, +2 ranged damage and two more to all resistances. But when it comes to the pay for past life feat the ranger life clearly wins. And that would be 2 more AC from level 12 on. Assuming that I can fit it in to my next build and AC will matter for it….?

Speaking of the next build and things I haven’t decided yet. What to do next? I think Fopo wants to do an arcane life next so I need to make a build that pairs up well with an arcane.

Also I think that Fo is worried that I will wrap up soon and leave him to level alone. Part of the reason he wants to get the lives he doesn’t want to solo done. However, Sam has 4ish more classes to level plus druid when it comes out and I also want to do two more FvS lives for the spell penetration but I want completionist before I worry a bout extra lives . I wonder were I would be at if I started TRing like Star did? Would I also have the super completionist title? I don’t think so.

Anyway, I want to try playing a rogue. But as I am thinking more of a permanent 18/2 rogue/fighter for epics or a 11/9 rog/monk for my TR life. Something to get the feel for the Rog some.

Maybe that 11/9 would be the way to be when teaming up with an Arcane. Assuming he will have the hate do to aoes or putting mobs into backstabbing mode via CC. All the while keeping the UMD up high for faster healing…

Lots to think about.
❤

Lets do a weekend review today. Starting with Reaver raid pugged.

Fopo was doing House C crafting ingredient runs. He was super focused on making some Bracers of Wind, once I showed him how to find a few more points of AC with some gear changes. So Torrance and I spent a lot of time saying “What do you want to do? I don’t know what do you want to do?” Before long she sees a Reaver Pug and jumps in. After a min I do the same.

For some reason every time I wonder why I have so much trouble soloing this thing any more. This raid with the Reaver at about 1/2, five(according to the wife) people where in the box. Way less then 7 people were being helpful. Including the raid leader/puzzle solver. So I pulled the lever, killed the reaver (not alone) and solved the puzzle. Got the shaft. But some one got a +3 tome and there was 1 or 2 seals and at least one or two other named lootz.

Flag for shroud, do shroud. Shroud is now Hard/Elite worthy. So we do Hard. Took us 3 tries over 2 days.

That first group was 2 sorcs, 3 Fvs, the 3 of us TR train people that were on. Can’t say I remember a ton about that first run until part 5 where melee could not keep Harry surrounded do to them just dropping due to the total lack of heals. Three FvS, had to hope one of them had mass heals??? People die, get rezed. Fight more. Harry was at a sliver. When I took to much damage that I couldn’t keep myself up with scrolls. All that was left was one Fvs. And he ran around healing himself. Finally got him to BB, thought he was going to save it. But he just couldn’t.

New day, new group. This group was way better then the other group. Part 4 was a long 1 rounder or a super short 2 rounder. Depending as to how you look at it. This time Part was a nightmare. Healing was alright, but not great. And we wiped with Harry at about a 1/3 to a 1/2 hp.

Grrr. Fine “normal for completion” I hate that line more then words can say. But we completed with mostly the same group.

Did the Reaver Refuge quests. Kobold was a nightmare. I am blaming scaling of a fourth person. Last life the 3 of us had no issues. But this time they were hitting that much harder. But all working together we found a way to win. Monastery we had to do the cake rez trick. Fo and I both tried for the switch. But the saves were too much. Torrance had the original learn to use the store cake handy. I need to go get mine before TRing again. Two runs to save the Dragon failed. Again we did all three Refuge quests last life on elite with no problems. We need to learn to work better with the bigger scaling and then some as I think Tobril is tagging along this next life….

The good thing is even though I was disappointed with the losses I didn’t feel like I was tilting. Think it was because I enjoy playing with these guys but not in a competitive way (Like I sometimes have with Tobril). Now if we can just complete some of these things regardless of scaling a hair smoother….

❤

Reign of Madness
The rings offered as end rewards now have a minimum level.
Lam Notes

I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Time to get grinding.

I have a +6 con ring bound to account with no minimum level. My wife has a GFL one also with no minimum level. I have a few other good rings on a bank character, a 125 Sp ring a long with one or two others, mainly Rouge skills. Remember, I always look at every item in my list for minimum levels. Sometimes you will be surprised. And when you TR as often as I do, twinking becomes half the fun.

Last night was a free night. Tobril is out of town, opening a new store. So I couldn’t make him lead a ToD for me.

Torrance was taking the night off after making me almond crusted chicken and banana pancakes, thanks le_goat. The pancakes were a little off. I have to find some caveman sirup, I guess. I am not a big anything on my pancakes guy but something is needed. Still I ate the hell out of them. 🙂

And Fo was out bowling. I am sure his blog will have scores and what not soon. 🙂

So I was alone for a while. Gave me some time to take my gimpy Samyus through the Reign of Madness pack. Had to do casual on some of them, but xp is xp. I made it through the pack with out to much trouble once i got past Acute Delirium. A quick look down the list gave me the option of a Fang of Siberys or a 25% striding ring of nothing +3. I took the ring.

Switched to Java and zerged the pack again, think he will be my madness farmer for the next week or so. Might have to pike my kids account along also! Got a Fang in the list again and lots of the upgrade collectables. There was also a +4 acid simy of PG level 8 took it as the games are rocking and how good would that be icy bursted at level 8?

I heard that U13 was due out on the 22 on the newest Ddocast. Or at least in the first 11 mins of it. I haven’t gotten to finish it yet. So you have 5 days to farm up your rings. I am looking for a False life of usefulness. Think fort can be the suffix on a ring. How uber would GFL of heavy fort be at level 0? heck I would take a FL of light fort and call it a win.

But how often do you get what you are looking for?

Skimming the Lam Notes….

The Ring of the Stalker’s Manslayer effect now works properly.
Lam Notes

Wonder how it was broken? Fo’s ring seems to vorp the mob whenever anyone on the server rolls a 20. 🙂 Hear Manslayer on some tears of the ring are broken. His is the level 12 version tear 3 added Feather Fall and lowered the level 2 making it level 11. It seams to work almost too well.

Monsters with rogue levels and the Sneak Attack ability now have the ability to reduce fortification to personal attacks to some degree. For example, a CR 10 bugbear assassin with 4 Sneak Attack dice will now be able to critically-hit someone with heavy fortification approximately 10% of the time. That same bugbear will be unable to critically hit a character with 110% fortification.
Lam Notes

Get your Fort up more or find some more Hps.

That is enough for now.

❤

Like almost every night I get asked what the plan is. And like every night I ask my wife (if she is playing) what she wants to do. Most nights it is level my TR. Or sometimes it is raids. Last night it was whatever.

Never a good sign.

So with xp on the brain, we knocked out the last 2 litany runs. Over all Litany chests were more helpful this life then normal. With 3 pages among 3 different people all from the same chest, it beats the normal totally skunked that I have been seeing the last 2 lives. Although a few lives back I got 2 Docents of Quicking. When I roll an Arty the dog will be uber!

After Litany, I look at the quest list. Acid Wit and Delirium are the only two level 15s I haven’t done. Miss remembering the other day which Harbinger of Madness quest was the final monster of a quest on Elite, I talked Micheal into bringing in his 20 so Phlor and I could do the quest on normal. So we could get the end reward for the chain. There are some good items in there.

Buff and Acid Wit it is as Delirium (Acute or not ) is one of the hardest quests to complete at level on elite. Acid Wit is doable if low xp for the time. The wife and I became separated as I followed mobs one way and see followed mobs the other way. A few seconds later I hear “I’m dead.” A quick look and she is still at 100 hp and I take off. But she is earth grabbed and too far away for me to save. 😦

That started the “Why are we doing this quest?” and “Where was my back up?” talk. Grrrr.

We complete and earn our 13k xp. Think I was the only one that didn’t die at some point.

I start looking at what is left. To get xp from in the level 15 quests. And there is not a lot when the wife talks about doing a Reaver.

A few things to keep in mind. I don’t like leading pugs. I was feeling ill. I try to keep everyone happy. And I have soloed the Reaver raid many many times. With all kinds of character types. I have exploded but not before pulling the lever that lowers the force field to the puzzle.

Well last night the four of us did. To start we got lots of ellies right away. The first 2 balls were both ellie spawns. Just as we get all the ellies down the other two corners are hit and spawn more. At this point Torrance gets tripped and again I can’t save her as I am in full on ranged mode across the room. One man down. We go up and down well everyone but Phlor who lands in the save spot and stayed there. The bravest of us all. 🙂

Fo and I are working on ellies and he drops to -2. I was not a far away from him and get a heal off just in time to go up again.

We are down to 5 or 6 ellies when we happen to get fly. And start the beat down again. After a few Torrance wants to know if anyone is coming to rez her? I send Fo as he can heal as well as I can but his lighting 2 should be a little less damage then my angry fists. He gets half way and realizes it will be a one way trip. I call him back.

A fresh fly and I go. I decide to get her stone and not pull the lever. It feels faster as I am running out of fly. Less then a min left. I move as fast as I can. Get right to the edge when I take 4 or 5 hits. I stop to heal. As I scroll my fly ends and I fall into the last batch of spikes. I am in the box. 10 secs later Tor pops in as her stone is still in my pack. She didn’t get a rez. But as she has started to not wear her head set she couldn’t ask for one.

Fo comes to get us. Making it to us but trapping him. I take his rez below, Tor gets mine and off I go, back to the beat down.

I get the reaver prepped and all I am waiting for is a fresh fly so to hit the kill switch and boom. The world explodes. I didn’t think the timer started until we got the kill switch? Oh well. If Tor didn’t die I know we would have won. If I hadn’t wasted time sending Fo and then recalling him we should have won. If I didn’t fail to get Tor back I think we would still have had a good shot.

But this one I know for sure, if the clock started when the kill switch is pulled we would have won no doubt.

Well live and learn. Maybe tonight.

❤

You can break characters into a few main groups.

Main, often the most played character. But is the one you most identify with, in my case I am Samius. He is my main.

Alts, the second tear of characters. You play them as much as you feel like. Sometimes more then your main but normally not. They are often built to allow you to do something your main can not or to play when you feel like something other then playing your main. JavaBot would be my main alt.

Role fillers, Alts you roll and level up to fill perceived holes in your alt options. I have 3 divines for “healing”, Butters is my Epic runner while Sam is on the TR train, etc.

And Bank/trash Alts. These are often experiments or Alts that have fallen from grace. Samyus (some one I will talk about later) was heavily played until TRing became an option and then Samius became a full on focus. These alts can often be salvaged but can be a challenge to recover.

Why to I bring this up? Three reasions, Phlor, Stiner and Samyus.

Phlor: Now back from dead, he was a main only kinda of guy. Mostly do to his dislike for leveling. He loves raiding, it is the part of any game he <3s the most. But he also wants to make his main as uber as he can. Aka some past lives are needed.

Stiner: Trying to cap out his first ever character. He has lots of Alts capped including his main, but he has set the goal of capping his first character ever.

Samyus: Lets say is he also someone I want to cap out so I can TR him in to a missing role. I will add some of the copy I wrote about him yesterday but ended up not using at the bottom if you want see how far he has fallen.

Here we have three different reasons to have and cap an alt. Phlor needs a raiding/epic capable alt for when the mood strikes him or to be part of the guild raid-epic nights. Stiner wants to get that feeling of completion from caping his first alt. And I want an old fav to have new life and get soom play time again.

As promised a little about Samyus. Samyus, is an alt I really loved back when the cap was lower. I built him with a full set of +1 tomes if that helps you get an idea as to how old he was. I was super pleased to get a full set for him. Now a set of +2 are fairly common for most of my guys. And some are close to a set of +3s. The idea was x/2 wiz/ranger melee/ranged focused and rock the auto crit enabling spells for good trash clean up.

Any way, after a few +3 lesser hearts, he is now 10wiz, 6 ranger, 1monk. And he uses a gs rapier 3xearth and 3x air light pick. He was the first guy to get GS of any kind. And back when we could auto crit with holds or earth grasp he was my nasty melee wizard. Now he is really lacking. When I put that last lesser into him I planed to do 12/6/2 and use lich form and stay melee. With the additional forms and lich moving to 18, he has been left unplayed at 17 for a very long time.

Alright that is enough for today.

❤

I want to share with you the story of my first love.

I was in 7th grade and in strings class, remember I play the cello. There were not a lot of us so they would bus the high school kids to the middle school fairly often as to let us play with a bigger group.

And I got to know some of the high school kids. Two guys stand out, stick with me. I swear this is not the story of any man on man action, Terry and Drew. They were junior and a freshman at the time and my poor little brain was thrilled that I could hang with the older kids.

So after a few weeks we had a concert. I say concert because we had more then just family members show. Afterwords while we were packing up, Terry asks if I wanted to try a game. Of course I was game, any time I could rock out with the older kids I was game.

They took me to their friends house where 3 or 4 other people where sitting around, drinking Mountain Dew and playing Magic the Gathering. Before long I was lost in the details of what was going on.

I had dice loaned to me, one of the DM’s jobs is to have group dice, a rule I still carry around with me. A “simple” character made for me. A rogue Kyrterion, (a home brew cat-man). I spent the night sitting around a table with strangers that I now miss and think of fondly often. I can’t even remember all their names. Even though I spent every available night playing Dnd with them. All while they made my little cat mans live miserable for the night. Throwing him down hall ways and into pits to “scout for monsters” More like using me for bait!

Later that night I had to go. But the games then went late into the night and I ended up running 2 miles to my mothers house at 12:30 to get home by my 1:00 curfew. My mother might mock of my nerdy-ness now, but she was very supportive back then and allowed me to stay out as long as I wanted as long as I was with Terry or Drew playing DnD.

I was in love right away. DnD gave me the freedom that I was missing in my home life back then. I lived with my father and my step-bitch(who made my live hell, not step kid hell, child abuse some day I will see here head on a stick in my front yard hell) But all that didn’t matter as long as on the weekends I could go to my mother’s and spend the nights playing DnD and the days watching my brothers do what ever sporting events where in season. My grades improved, if they slipped it was an excuse to ground me away from my mothers house as well as all my chores and whatnot’s around the house.

At some point that first group broke up, people went of to collage or off to get their “real” jobs. My mother had to move for work. Tobril and I started playing. And I became the DM. I got a job at Wendy’s and worked my schedule out to include gaming 2 or more nights a week. And it was a few more years until any thing challenged my love for my game, until I met a girl that later became my wife. And now we spend our nights playing Ddo. I couldn’t be much happier. Both of my loves at my finger tips.

❤

Saturday night the Tr train leveled to 17. Almost right away I started to hit up Oncler in channel to drag me through elite Hox and Vod. But I didn’t get any replies. 😦

After a quick gear check (nope still nothing at level 17) and a few people saying they were leaving or taking a long afk I looked at the Lfm panel.

What do I see? Oncler, has an elite Hox Up. WTF?

So I shoot him a tell “Room for three?” I see that there are like 4 or 5 people in the group already, so I assume we are good. But after a min or two I get no reply. And 2 more slots fill.

Well hell. Drop and apply. Get in and first thing ask for 2 more slots. But there is only one slot left. The wife hits the LFM and gets in. Oncler and I chat for a min and he boots a guy that has been Dced for 5-10 mins and says “He can bitch at me, if he ever logs back on!” And invites Fopo. And we are off.

We have the H method planed, and I was looking forward to trying out my Dps in the next tear of quests. Remember, just leveled to 17. I get assigned to the west and Fopo and Torrance the right. But I guess when the guys run this on hard everyone collapses into the center and ride it out with 4 stones using 2 or 3 dogs. And an arcane kites the outside alone using Flesh to Stone on the beholders.

But elite Big Mama has too many Hps for 4 stones and by the time we got back out to look for more things were a mess. On the plus side other then a early fluke death where no one was able to help me kill a protector that made it into the middle until after I died. I was the next to last to die, and that was to a Mama over run while orange alert.

Rebuff and I insist on staying outside to keep the alert down and we win in no time. There was a funny point when Fopo and I where the only two on one side, he was real low and I go to heal him just as a doomball Tenser’s me. And he has to kit around until he heals up and I kill the baddie. The Chain Shirt drops for me, but it is no help. But it goes to the wife who passes it off also.

eVod goes smoother then the Hox at least until the end push when both divines die. 1/2 the melee die once there is no mass healing but Torrance and I live along with enough people to finish Sully off. Again no worth wild loot, but 66K+ xp and kept the streak alive.

So wins aver all.
❤

So I have been on this Caveman diet. Mostly meat and veggies. No grains, legumes or a small list of other items. For the most part it is vary easy. I can sit my cravings aside and be good.

Also I have lost 23 pounds in the last 2 or 3 weeks and more importantly my migraines have backed down some. There is still a throb like a sore muscle or something but the 24/7electric fire that I decided would never go away with out lots and lots of pain killers is a lot more manageable. Now I just have the flare ups to manage.

So anyway, the wife and I decided we would cheat a little for Vday and go eat at this little dinner we like. I have been trying to make something like pancakes for awhile now using Almond flour, eggs, and coconut milk. But they aren’t right. I can take that batter and pour it into a muffin tin and make a brisket like thing. But it tastes very Almondly. Which is good. But not what I am looking for. But I will keep at it.

So we hit this dinner and I order some pancakes, she behaves slightly better then I and gets a hamburger and fries (aka her kryptonite).

As soon as I dig into the pancakes they taste “wrong”. I am not sure if the month and a half of eating better as reprogrammed my taste buds some or not. But were not what I wanted as soon as I had the first bite.

But I ate more. And as I went on, I knew I just didn’t want them. So at one and a half pancakes in a short stack of 3 I pushed them aside. I felt heavy and bloated. But hungry. But I had the nasty taste in my mouth and couldn’t eat the eggs even.

So we went home, both the wife and I regretting going out. And it hits me what I have been graving potato-pancakes or Mac and Cheese. But cheating on both grains and cheese would be too much.

So anyway maybe next month when I want to cheat again I will remember this and stop myself. Or at least find something worth cheating with.