On Thursdays I twist Tobril’s arm and make him lead me through Tod at least one for Butterz. Mainly to spend some time doing end game stuff. Ideally, we would do a ToD then LoB and MA. Well last night we did two ToDs and an Abbott. It worked out I guess.

So I swap from Samiusjr to Butterz. I have been taking the slow 30mins or so to ransack Raiding the Giant’s Vault with Jr to farm some plat and renown. It keeps my account in the black while TRing Samius non-stop.

So swap, Boat up and head to the quest, a healer short of full and ready to go. There is some talk about as we have Ac tanks the two bards in the group could scroll the tank and the lone divine could stay with the party. But alas Butterz was on timer for 16 hours. Oops!

I forgot, Oncler did a hard a few days ago and I tagged along.

After a quick chat with Tobril I swap to Java. So I could heal and he would lead on Holy and I could bring Jr for that run.

Group 1:
I am not sure what happened, the raid was full of good peeps. But part one was kinda F’ed up. I needed up moving to the party once the other healer and 3 or so good melees died. Leaving Tobril to tank the Jailer by pot healing. He was fine. Don’t think that it was all impressive. Tobril didn’t get the him killed before we stabilized and killed the Judge. If he did then we all would be impressed.

Part 2 was going fine until the kiter died. I got a BB down and was winging out, when Tobril yelled out to spam heals. I took a hit as poor Java is not fast. Wing and then 5 secs of sloooooooow. And wing again. Many people died, including me as the Devil went down. But a win is a win right?

Part 3, well the group woke up and it was super smooth. Tobril passed me a trophy for healing. And there was 4 or 5 rings drop. Not super ones. And Java has his rings just can’t seem to find the right belt. If I did more then 1 ToD with him a month it might help.

Group 2:
We had a lot of hold overs, which is cool. But we also picked up a few people. Not English speaking people, not an issue until loot drops.

Part 1 and 2 go smooth. Tobril kites on his WF FVS I need to ask him about his striding item. Maybe I will get an Abbott seal and fix Java’s quiver next.

Any way part 3 is also super smooth until it is loot time. One of the Asian guys pulls a Telvi’s Touch and another guy pulls a Oremi’s Ring. There might have been others but these are the issue.

In chat the owner of the Telvi’s Touch asks if any one wants it. Or I assume that is what linking it meant. No dice were ever given, but I want to say I saw someone say they did. Mean while the owner of the Oremi’s wants to give his away over voice. 2 or 3 people say I do, plus myself. And I also type in chat that I would like to roll on it, if it was up. No one else seems to want it. But he doesn’t seem to hear me. A little bit later, he asks again offering it to one of Miss’s monk. He says no, and says to pass it to me. I say that would be great and type something to that effect in case he doesn’t understand/ or hear me. Some how this guy thinks that there is another Oremi’s in the chest and again is looking for someone that might want his.

Mean while back to the Telvi’s. Its owner links it again. That is all, just links it. The only sorc in the group says he wants it via chat.

About that time Miss is fed up and tells people how the rings should go. I should get the Oremi’s and the sorc (ice) should get the Telvi’s. I shorted and cleaned it up for you all. But that was what he said in a nut shell. While I would like the ring I by no means require it. Its owner just seemed to want to give it to anyone but me. Which was weird to me, but I let it go.

After Miss was done the Sorc informed him that he as air, and not water. And Miss said that he took it all back and asked why he was trying to help. Which the the Oremi’s owner meant that I didn’t want said ring. And began to ask again for any takers. I just typed that I would like the ring and left it as that.

I think someone must have sent him a tell as out of the blue it got passed to me, about a min after that. I thanked him and left.

I don’t know who, if anyone got that Telvi’s. 10Mins standing around a chest and talking is too much for me. All I know is people started recalling and dropping so I figured that someone would take if sometime.

Crazy! So anyway thanks to some very good people Jr has one of his dream rings. Think he might get played a little more often as some of his key gear is coming together. Just need to get a plan together. Thankfully Tobril has a good gear layout for a halfing monk I can follow more or less. 🙂

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So I have been looking at making a few changes for the rest of my TR lives thanks mainly to some new gear that has come out aka Ring of the Stalker.

For those living under a rock the Ring of the Stalker, is a Cannith Challeng item and has many levels and tears in side those levels. I would say check out the DdoWiki: http://ddowiki.com/page/Ring_of_the_Stalker if you want to read more about the Ring then I am going to share.

I am going to look at the level 12 ring as it is the one I might make a ton of changes to my build to account for.

Lvl 12 T1: Exceptional Sneak Attack +1, Seeker +3, Manslayer
Lvl 12 T2: Exceptional Sneak Attack +1, Seeker +4, Manslayer
Lvl 12 T3: Exceptional Sneak Attack +1, Seeker +4, Manslayer, Craftable +3 (Bound to Char)

Manslayer: Your melee (with weapons not Unharmed or handwraps) and ranged attacks with throwing weapons against Humanoid targets gain the Vorpal effect or Drow, Dwarf, Elf, Gnoll, Goblinoid, Bugbear, Hobgoblin, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Human, Reptilian, Kobold and Troglodyte. Aka most mobs you will encounter from level 12 until level 17-18. Until most mobs become devils or when in heavy undead content.

So how does that ring lead to GS? Well Wraps wont work with it. And the idea of a vorpal 3xPOS Kama(Short sword??) say Holy, Good Burst, 30% amp and a say a vorpal 3xPOS AMP, Pos burst, HA 4 Kama(Short sword??) seems fairy good.

I don’t really think I am going to do this. But I might. Dual welding +5 vorpal/Greater Disruptors boosting my level 12 amp to 200% plus and takes the Ac up another 2 over the cloak I spent a lot of time making… The only real downside is taking my hit damage from 2d6 to 1d8, and not being able to use the Vamp stonedust wraps 100%. 😦

With the upcoming GS deconstruction at least some of the mats will be returned, so it will be like paying X ingredients to temporally use some Kamas for TRing… For five and a half lives to completionist and 2 more after that?

It is something to think about.
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I guess I am not the only one that wants to try to do a little improvement in my life. My cave man diet is doing well btw. And so far the wife is sticking to her quest to quit drinking Pepsi and changing her diet to help her feel a little better. Did I tell you all about the Berkey? Maybe I will save talking about it until the end.

Anyway, Tobril is also on the betterment bandwagon. Monday I got a weird tweet from him to me “I need a bit of help, if you (Samius) can commit to 2 mins a day for the next 90 days”

Hmm, sure?

He called yesterday, and explained what he is doing, well enough anyway. Now I am going to try to explain it to you and ask for your help also.

The long and short is he wants to devote an hour a day to study. 50 mins for reading/doing and 10 mins doing a fast blog/writing about what he just spent the last hour doing. In a tap it while it is hot. So to have a second experience to help with recall.

But here is the deal, Tobril has focus waves. He will become super focused on something for a few weeks to a month/s. But never really more then 3 or 4 months at a time. Ddo is the only thing I have ever known him to keep is intensity at a high for an extended time. And even then he as waxed and waned as we all have.

Just a few of the things I have seen him focus on over the years, his car, Magic, the “Girl”, Ninja classes, playing the G-tar, biking and a ton more. All of these things have had their day and have fallen to the normal level of attention. Tobril is the only one I know that 30 days of doing something doesn’t form a habit. A rare gift in deed!

So to keep him on task he has written me a check and put it in the mail. A check that I have been asked to cash if he fails to keep up with the pace he has chosen of five blog updates a week. I guess I am the stick to the carrot of self improvement. And I am a pointy, electric burning stick.

At first I was joking around but thinking that he would send 20$ or something. As to quote him “I find the idea of giving you money disgusting!” But checking out his blog @ tobril.com/blog/ the check is written with an amount that makes me want to half root for him to fail. 🙂

So this is what I would like from you all. If you like programing and related topics, please check out his blog. Help keep him on task, because my own greedy nature will kick in soon and I will try to get him to fail like no other. That is some phat loot right there! Think of all the emergency items I could buy with that cash.

Quick Berkey blurb:
The Berkey is a gravity feed water filtration system. Think of it as two 5 gallon buckets. But they look like those water jugs that most water fountains with the filtered water use. Any way the top “bucket” has 4 holes for up to four water filters. I only have 2 atm. These water filters are the main part of the system they are reusable just needing a good cleaning every so many gallons like around 3000. One of the nice things is you can buy extra filters and add them to speed up the your water putrefaction time. They also have another level of filtration that you can get (I did) that removes the fluoride and arsenic from the water. Aka poisons that every city in the US adds to the water.

The long and short is my wife will drink the water from the Berkey but she wouldn’t drink from the sink. She hated using the sink water to cook with and now we don’t have to. Since it is gravity feed and has a built in reserve tank a few days with out power or water is not a huge deal. Also I can gather almost any water and the Berkey will clean it out. So if the shit hits I could hit the local stream and still have clean good tasting water where others are using fuel to boil the water for safety and it might still taste/smell nasty.

Yesterday I talked about keeping up my AC or switching back to the more normal leveling gear layout for me of Hp/amp/guards/ dr. I got some lower votes and some good feed back. So last night when I logged on I did some content in my HP/Amp/Guard gear and some in my Ac gear.

HP/Amp/Guard:
Swapping in to a con 6 ring, and a Greater False Life item netted me more then 75hp. Plus I remembered to slot a guild item with hp putting me at a hair under 500 hp. My amp is missing something as my 1 were still 1s but my 2s were 3s and my 5s were 7s so I am some place in the 150% to 199% amp range. Lowering my AC to 45.

We went out to the vale, just to net some easy to get xp while the rest of the group formed up. And I have to say it was like any other time in the vale. I got hit a lot and took lots of damage. But I was able to keep myself at more then 300 hp off nothing more then my incoming healing and light finishers. Had the bad lag that ended up killing the client while there was 4 spiders on me. But the time I had relogged in there was only one left, guards/ auto attack had killed the other 3 and I was still in the 300s.

And while this is normal for me balancing incoming healing vs incoming damage so I am not worried about doing the dance. Is it the best way?

Everyone finished eating, hang up the phone, got out of the restroom long enough for us to do Madstone.

AC:
For Madstone (elite) I went back to AC, I kept all my not Ac gear in my pack encase 64 Ac was not helpful. But I had the feeling that it would be.

I went ahead and shielded up to clear the main field. The lowest I got Hp wise, was 350 or so. I was almost always full. My incoming healing more or less the rare hits and any glancing blows I may have taken. And the one time I noticed that I was down I was able to light finisher and fill back up completely.

Crucible (elite) was the same way. Other then the swim (where I did switch to hp mode just in case) I learned a 7+32 did not evade but silver flame pots made quick work of the damage and the swims we no problem. Yes I went back for the bracers chest. No I did not get any still.

For now I am going to stay AC. I am not going to lower my dps to stay AC like I could. But as long as it is working I will keep. Right now the loss of Hp is totally countered by having an effective AC.

Something for you neigh sayers to remember, I am not talking about a 64 AC at the end game being effective. I am talking about at level elites and one level above hards while leveling back up so I can TR again. That is all.

However, I am working on an end game Ac tank so look forward to that build sometime.

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Right now my AC is beholder resistant 59. Add in a shield wand I can boost it a bit more. And if I wanted to use Bark skin pots I could go higher with an unlocked HoGF and a few more with some AC bracers vs my Jidz. But that is about my cap. 4 or so more points, on my own. Short of totally changing my play style (which I could do) I don’t see a way to really move my AC up any more with the gear I have.

Keeping my Ac that high is costing me some good things.

Like a lot of HP. Right now I have about 370 hp. That is with out a Con or GFL item. So I am missing out on 75 hp, just because there is not room. Wearing my Icy means I am not using my amp/amp/guard DT robe. Wearing my DT would boost my amp to 200% Making Vamp strikes that would have healed for 1 heal for 2 points, 2 in to 4 and 3 into 6 per hit. Jerky would tick for 4 and the Jungle Cloak/Ham 10 points.

Hp and incoming “trickle healing” are not the only items missing. Before taking level 16 I have been using the lvl 12 Brawling Gloves so I have been down 2 possible Strength. I am 90% sure I have a full tear 3 level 16 pair to max my strength out again but the last few levels have been harder then necessary when it comes to stats. With so many slots used for AC items I don’t have room for basic stat items in every slot making it dangerous to use silver flame pots for big healing when needed.

Let alone swaps for umd gear.

So what do you think? Back to hp, amp and guards? Or do I stick it out through elite Gh and Abbott flagging quests? Do I mix some things up and net some more AC, at the cost of some dps? Do I make another Cannith crafted trinket, this time for Superior Devotion / +4 attack bonus? Maybe take the time when the Cove returns to make a AC hat for next life?

Comments go in the comment place.

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Over the last few days/weeks many of the older guard of the Defense Guild as returned. Micheal, Phlor, Evan, Tim to name a few.

Well last night in a Tod, Tobril and I where making gay jokes and whatnot. Generally trying to pump up the group with a little humor. I think that a group that can relax and have a good time can/will handle almost anything and win. And humor is normally a great way to get everyone on the same page and relaxed.

Any way as Tobril and I are joking, one of the raiders says “Is that Samius?” Which I reply not at the moment. Or something like that. Tobril says ”I payed that guy five dollars to ask you that, to make you feel good about yourself.” Which I thought was funny as hell at the time.

And tell began to fly. As the person begins to explain that we we in a guild together before the server merge. I let him know I have only been a member of DG. Which is not 100% true now that I think of it. I have alts in the Build Guild which I never play on…. We bounce around some more tells and he says his kid also plays and I would call him KY.

Mertan and Gor-baby!

Back when the DG first started we were a lot more open to guild invites. We weren’t worried about the Guild’s reputation then. Before guild renown, when we played with someone 2 or 3 days and we thought they were good players and they worked with the team well they were offered a guild invite.

This is how Crisis came to DG, as well as a lot of others.

Mertan, was (maybe is) a guild butterfly. Like Lessah I guess. He was part of the DG and the Halfling Commandos for sure and I think a few more. And is an alt-olic. And as his interests went from one thing to another he played his DG alts less and less. To the point where they were bank mules. At that point we had decided to do a culling. Everyone that hadn’t longed on in so many weeks got cut . Those people got a guild re-invite letter and an explanation in the mail and if they had an email on the guild web site a mailing also went out.

Mertan/Gorbadd were lost to us.

Well I guess he was just on other alts on in other guilds. It was good to run with him again. Got got up some on the families goings ons.

Now if Crisis or the Cousins log on, then it really will be a return of the dead.

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Why is it that the Tod Rings really don’t work for the class they are named for? Or maybe I am the only one that thinks so.

Tonight I have a Tod or two planed. At least one with Butterz and she is ringless. So is Samiusjr my 20 monk, who I would also like to ring up…. But lets talk about Butter and her rings.

There are 13 different Tod Rings. Each has a +6 modifier (str/dex/wis/int/chr) and a +1 exceptional bonus. With the exception of the wild mage ring which has an +1 exceptional bonus but to a randomly picked stat. Each ring is paired with a necklace or belt to form a set. Ideally each set has ties to a class/PRe combo. Some sets have bonuses just for wearing the set, others also require having a pre, others still have both non pre bonuses and pre bonus.

When choosing a ring or rings I look at all the different bits of having the ring and try to find one that matters so me.

Butterz is a bard, there are 3 bard rings all of them are very similar, and if every bard item didn’t come with +6 chr one of them would be very appealing. But as it is my BARD CLOAK is +6 chr +15 perform and my bard sword is +7 chr I don’t really need a +6 chr ring. They each have a component necklace to complete the set, and they are all the same. Superior Potency VI, Wizardry VI. Yep 3 different named items with the same powers. Boring.

Their set bonuses are not any better, 2 extra songs or 1 extra song and and extend spell costs 2 sp less or 1 extra song, extend spell costs 1 sp less and maximize spell cost 4 less. Oh boy. The exceptional +1s are to dex, dex or str. Well at least +1 to str can be helpful. And I guess if I wanting to use a different cloak my catch all chr item for weapon swaps one of the bard rings would be okay, but I am never going to want one of these set bonuses enough to wear one of these necklaces.

So lets jump to what I am looking for in a ring. +1 exceptional Chr. There are 5. 2 clr rings both are +6 wis and their set is for turning undead. And all of the Paladin rings also have exceptional chr and are +6 str the only set that is kinda helpful is the knight of the chalice, and that is 22 SR. I said kinda helpful.

If I look at the set bonuses for goodies, there is the
Occult Slayer: +2 Exceptional Bonus to Will saves, +2 Exceptional Bonus to Reflex saves, Spell Resistance (22)
Ravager: more damage.. but the most wanted set???
Kensai: +2 Exceptional Melee To-Hit, +3 Confirm Criticals
Shintao: +2 Exceptional Bonus to To-Hit and Damage., aka the othe most wanted ring.
Tempest and Deepwood Sniper: both have good sets but are nasty items.
Assassin: +2 to hit and +5 damage sneak attacks, I really like this one. But what am I getting over a pair of the cove gloves?
Mechanic: +2 Exceptional Bonus to all Dexterity based Skills, This is also helpful my traping skills can take any help they can get. But I am at 58ish once I make a +5-6 shroud items for skills how needed is it.

So I am going to say, What the !@#$. Guess I will look for any of the Pally rings and or the Kensai/Shintao rings. But if I get the Shintao ring I will need to wear the set most of the time or get shot from most of the player base. 🙂
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With the realization that the challenges are stupid amounts of xp depending on the number of stars you earn and the sudden desire to craft a flaming cloak. Cloak of Flame? What ever. When free time happens Fopo and I have been in the challenges.

Some of them we are getting down with the two of us. The kobold mining quests aren’t too bad, we might have 5 stared one of the ones in the extraplanar palace. I know we 3 and 4 stared a lot of the ones there.

But we are having issues in Kobold Island. We got 3 stars it and still only got 5 sticks or whatever that challenge gives. Not really sure what to do about it other then get the TR Train all together and run it. I don’t need tons, just 400 for now.

But I want to say the xp is great. Think we did one that took 10 mins and got 12k. I know there was another one we ran that was longer but was still about 1k a min xp wise.

Taking a look at the different turn ins. There is a ton of good items. The belt is a no brainier. The Cloak I talk about yesterday. Ring of the Stalker, and Bracers of Wind both have a place and the Mournlode weapons make some great undead killers. But mainly if you look into the turn ins. 300 of the “epic” bits turn in for and epic token. I think a good group could make 300 or more “epic” bits a run on some of them.

Epic Tuesday went fairly well even though we started later then normal. We did Wda what is becoming our warm up epic. 37 mins. Not bad time. If I can get into some Lobs and make Butterz an +10 stunning shield and make her a epic Spare hand her stunning DC will matter, at least on casters and what not. And getting our Assassin’s DC a bit higher wouldn’t hurt either.

Our normal fast DQ turned up a Green blade but took about 20 mins all together.

Popping over to Esnitch for the shot at an Axe seal got us a Utility Vest seal which went to the rouge. But the Epary crashers after that got me a much needed seal for a upcoming Shimmering Pendant. Just need a scroll now I think.

Alrighty, back to work.
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I am the De facto“leader” of the my TR Train. As I my have said before there are 3 core people, Myself, Torance and Fopo. We have others join for a life or a long weekend, Tobril does this often when he feels like knocking out a TR. It allows people to wax and wain as they feel like it. As long as they can finish what they start.

Also we have picked up 2 or 3 others this life. Phlor and Evan are playing again, as well as Stiner has moved his original ddo alt to Sarlona and hopes to cap him out. But he is currently 7 levels behind us. We might catch him on the relap.

So the xp train is full steam ahead or is it? Some of our group would rather watch TV some nights and don’t long on at all. Cou-torrance-gh cough! Others each have their own little weekly scheduled nights off. Fopo bowls on Wednesdays or Thursdays depending on what league is running. Phlor has an agreement with his GF/finance/wife ( that is how he types it) to really play a few nights a week. I know he hasn’t gotten married, but his balls are in a vice as bad as any married man. 🙂 Thankfully he still manages to play some on his nights off.

Mainly I want to keep people on the same quest chain. When we move to Orchard quests and the hunt to fill people’s frames. I don’t want to have to repeat any more then we have to; filling 5-6 frames will be more then a few repeats. So no need to do so because someone missed an important night.

Right now I am working out a weekly plan to allow for people to get some raids/epics in. Think most of you know about Epic Tuesday. I have talked about it enough on other posts that it might be ingrained.

But I am using Monday as a free for all. Last night I did some raids with Oncler and others, good times. And then the TR group formed up and we xped some. Which was also good times. I logged waiting for a ToD to fill, just needed one more healer. After 40 mins, I was done waiting.

We covered Epic Tuesdays.

XP Wednesdays, at least until Fopo’s bowling night switches back to summer league.

Thursday another free night, but I think Tobril and I have Raids planed. Tods maybe a titan/shrouds or Evon6. Also TV night with the wife. So I have to split the night somehow.

Friday more XP, with the weekend falling to free time/xp hunt depending on people logged on.

That doesn’t sound like a slow down to a lot of you, I know. But most of those free nights normally only have a few hours of play time. During the summer when new “shows” aren’t on I get to play a little longer due to not having TV time.

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Happy Monday peeps. As what is becoming quickly a simi tradition here I am going to talk about gearing up Samius at level 14.

Over the weekend the TR train picked up some more people and lost a little momentum. Think I will talk about the momentum loss on tomorrow’s post. But we still had level 14 on Sunday afternoon. And I logged for the night with 15 banked. But I think I am a little ahead of everyone.

So I am fine tuning my gear setup for the bowonk shell as I level up.

By the way I ended up taking fighter levels when it was time to level. I still haven’t decided what this life is going to count for fighter or ranger I still have some wiggle room. I miss the bad touch a lot, but I am getting feed back from some of the group members that my dps is good with out it. So going taking a few fighter level is not the end all, if I decided to go ranger and not fighter. I love having room for quick draw, however, and I might need to try harder to fit it in more often.

So gear, I have my 3 green steel hp items. Hat (Min2), Goggles (Nx3) they are also a swap spot for a Airx2 that are not quite what I want and I will fix them once we can deconstruct them, and boots (waterx3). Remember I spread out my hp items to make swapping any given item less painful. Like if I need to swap to the Royal Guard Mask in a bug out about to die situation I have less of a chance to kill myself with a sudden loss of HP if say my Min2 hat was all Hp.

I have +6 wis, dex, con in the neck, ring, belt(med guild -HP) slots. Mantel, Jungle, Twilight in the cloak slot. Jidz for bracers, yes I am in Earth stance.

Then I have the Icy, Chattering, and a crafted trinkets (+4 attack/ +3 natural armor) (+3 natural armor +1 dodge). Putting my AC at 55, 60 with a shield spell via wand.

See anything major missing? I can wait, think it over.

Yep no False Life. At 12 I was using a GFL robe, or a life shield of FL making my HP around 400 unraged.

But my Ac then was 4 less. Worked most of the time but not all the time. I could do some AC boosting, hear me out and tell me what you think. If I upgraded my Head of Good Fortune that is +2 dodge and drink Bark pots. And craft up a Cloak of the Flames level 12 t3 has Heightened Awareness II and crafting +3 for say dusk or something. That should be 4 more AC.

If we could put dodge on a cloak that would be 1 more Ac or maybe false life of some kind. Maybe with the new update and the new less restrictive crafting shards this can happen. Or maybe the shards count as a trinket. That would be full of win.

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