So I failed/wiped an Abbot raid over the weekend, but it was totally NOT MY FAULT. I blame a new kind of lag I have never seen before, Airship lag. I have ended up on a not real not my boat before. But nothing like this…..You know, let me start at the start and not me crying.

Squiggly line, Squiggly line.

Rocking xp for samius last weekend, and I hit the LFM panel. Mostly for the raids that I can’t easily get the wife to do. Mostly so I don’t get yelled at for doing raid X with out her. And I see an Abbot and a shroud. Now she loves to shroud but hates the Abbot.

So I examine the LFM, don’t see anyone I know and they are looking for 2 gogglers. So I risk the wife’s wrath and join the shroud. A fairly quick run later I am selling and my TR channel gets a message from Tobril. Can anyone join this Abbot and do goggles with me? Turns out that he logged on and jumped into said abbot right as part 1 was wrapping up. And as been waiting until I finished up to ask the channel. Aka me, as he knew damn well I was the only one in channel that can do goggles. That wanker.

So I say sure and join. There was much rejoicing. I make a made dash to the airship tower in the twelve. And click the door informing my ship captain that I need a ride. Nothing, try again, nothing. A third try leaves me in the twelve so Frack it! I take off towards the market place tower. Maybe it will work???

I jump over the entrance to the sub running through the market and POP, load screen. And I am on the ship. Okay??

Buff and head to the orchard.

Get in side, buff beat down the abbot. Get in goggles. Start leading Tobril across. And POP load screen. Back to the boat….

Tobril falls to death, as I left him with out a guide. Then roids wipes. I think mostly do to people wanting to know “WTF?” and they catch a roid in the back of their heads. So we reform and try again.

Some time that day we defeat the Abbot and I pull my gloves of POWER DRAIN. So now I can yell over mic POWER DRAIN 100 times a quest like Tobril did the first few months after he pulled his first, second and third pair of gloves……. What a wanker.

Anyway I am waiting for that third click to take me to the ship any time now. Like as I open the shroud chest and everyone passes me their larges or as I am clicking on a fresh suit of marith chain. Good times…

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*edit* here is an old post I wrote a few months back that didn’t get published. Enjoy

Hit Points, Ac or Dr

Guys pick one and major in it.

I am not saying it has to be your main focus but if you can have a half way useful amount of one of the three and a so so amount of the others I wouldn’t worry so much.

Please let me explain, I just ran an epic Bargain of Blood as a healer. And the group ran me out of SP at the shrine. Okay no big. I am a bit rusty. And I know I was over healing trying not to lose anyone else after I lost one of the 3 monks. But you know I decided to stop fighting and just watch player and health bars and I saw many times people would take one hit and be well below half hit points.

How?

Why?

I don’t understand, 18/2 Samius could take a few hits before having to stop and heal. So please get some hitpoints. 350 – 450 is a good starting range. You can go higher. More is good, but please start in the 350 range.

If you want to get some AC or some DR. Even 5 points of DR is simi easy to come by, Bloodrage symbiont and Kaelth’s Touch are handy trinkets for DR. Sure AC for epics is not real easy but maybe if you try to dance in combat you can avoid some damage as well.

Oh, yes we won. No seals. But I got Scroll of the Jidz so I can’t complain to much. Well other then drinking that pot that is.

❤

I was going to talk about some fun times lag that caused me to fail/wipe an Abbot raid. But after last night I want to share a puging story.

Shroud is one of the best places to earn xp once your in the 17+ range. I know we used to shroud at 12-13 but not any more….. Anyway, I was keeping my eye out for a few raids. I have taken to not being the guy with the star. I normally end up being someone that coordinates anyway I don’t want the added blame when a pug falls apart.

So right before bed a raid is posted and is filling fast. So I jump in with Samius. I am sitting at 12/6/1 bard/fighter/barb by the way, as a side note.

So get to the raid door and I notice that it has still not been opened. So I wait, starting to pay attention to the group talk. And before that long I notice that we are in on elite. SWEET! I inform the wife that we must have a good group because they decided to go elite. And I was super excited. It is hard to get an elite pug anything and win. Let alone a group that is willing to try. It takes a catalyst to get people to step up and push themselves.

We are in part one and I learn from the chatter that not many of the group has done the shroud on elite…. Oh noes.

But the group is tracking fine. Even if they are surprised that there is not a lot of changes for elite vs normal. They even noticed that I have the finding marks and asked me to boost the chests. Yes they asked me.

So we got moving in to part 2. But guys pull everything to the middle vs killing along the way. So there are a few deaths. But for the most part it was not too bad. But I decide to step up and try to lead some. Get the clrs to fill up in the trees like the good old days. Break a magic floating rock and move on to part 3.

Solved the circle and both 5x5s but no sign of the wall, and got 2 of the chests buffed. So good times. Started part 4, and we lose a barb right away. There was just no heals. I got the clrs healing and hand out a few pots. 10 total. Tell them to heal and drink if needed. I want the xp. But the clrs gave up. I think seeing a small stack of pots means I all ready won to many people and they didn’t really give it their all. I do my best to keep us moving. But after 3 rounds Harry is at half and I can’t get any help on the gnolls. I take a back to back DBF and a Mstorm about 4 gnolls left and as soon as I died the rest of the group dinged.

I am glad there was a pug that was willing to push themselves. But I would have liked them to have a little better idea what to do/expect. But mostly I want people not to lose heart. Or if they do, still fight. And keep positive, at least over mic. I think that group could have at least gotten to part 5. It would have been a 4-5 rounder and it would have taken all of those pots but I didn’t think I would get them back anyway. (And I didn’t 🙂 )

It was just key vocal people didn’t think we could do it, voiced it and then set us up to fail. Happens.

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There has been so much going on over the long weekend. I hope to space it out and get you all a few good posts for this week.

Lets start with a simi popular topic…. Werds, my name is Samius and I am a Chest Blesser. Well at least for a few more days. 🙂

But what is the deal. There are tons of discussion/s right now about handling blessers and looters. People looting as chests being looted as the blessing is being given. Said people bitting the chest openers head off. Avoiding groups with blessers and so on.

So really what is the big deal? I know as the blesser I took the feats to help me. I wanted to try them out. And I wanted to re-pad my plat total as I am doing a lot of crafting and my plat buffer was dwindling. (And it is working. I am slowing making plat, even when crunching most of my loots.)

Do I have problems when someone opens a chest while I am buffing it? Well yes. If 10 other people are standing around waiting for 1 guy to bless a chest then you can wait also. If your not the group leader or someone blessing chests why are you opening chests anyway?

Now on the flip side do I get “angry” when some one opens a chest on me? Not really. I know above I said yes, and now I am saying no. But here is the deal. People will forget. Get on auto pilot. Or just be in an hurry. It is going to happen. No reasons to get upset.

So what do I do? The only people I show any annoyance to/at are guildies or people in my TR channel. After a few days of me having and using the feats they are mostly trained. And they are also seeing the benefits. So they are now motivated to let me wiggy the chest.

But never in a raid. I will let the raid leader know that I can bless the chests and I will try to do so. If the leader wants to make a big deal then I leave it to them. Although I have taken to try to get ahead of the group or stop fighting and get a blessing while the group is still busy. If I notice that there is one guy opening the chests I might send him a tell letting him know that I can work the chests.

There are tons of reasons to get pissed off. None of them have anything to do with getting any extra +1 loot…

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Sure the title is a little miss leading, but it happened for me last night. 1500 slayers in the vale both Lams and Shavs rounded out the rares and a few extra. Even took the time to pray to the chests before looting them most of the time. Add in a running 20% pot, +5% from VoM or Mantle and the 2% from the boat and big xps.

Vale running is one of those things I like to do between things. Like when I am waiting for people to log in or finish running something before forming up. I like explorer areas for this. Lets me feel like I am keeping forward momentum while waiting for my guildies/friends. Otherwise a get tired of waiting on them and I end up in a quest, then they finish up and they get started on something and we end up missing each other all night. So it is just better to be the one to man up and wait and running slayers is a fine way to kill 10-20 mins.

So I step in the vale about 400 kills short from 1500, so I hit one of the slayer bonus pots and went to town. A run through pop back to town, boot my logged off wife and keep moving. Bam 1500 lams for 22K or so. Reset again. And bam another 22k. Knocked out my last 4-5 rares for 4k+ 9k for catching them all. And 2 more Litany runs for 10 k and I noticed about an hour has passed. So not to bad, right around 1000xp an min.

So I took a break to watch a movie. And returned a few hours later, and got my Reavers refuge explores and a few rares while the last of my xp pot ticked down.

I really like the new slayer pots. I know it is not popular for me to say so, but I really do. For me they are good when first entering a new explorer zone, to speed along those early xp tears. And then good again when you wish to speed along to the next tear for a big xp pay off.

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For a very important date.
No time to say “Hello.”
Goodbye.
I’m late, I’m late, I’m late. – White Rabbit.

I was searching the Ddowiki, to answer some question, when I stumbled on to this tidbit from the dev Phax.

If you first entered the dungeon ten or more minutes after it spawned, you’ll have a -80% penalty if the time between your entry and completion is less than a quarter of the dungeon’s lifetime at that moment. If it’s at least a quarter but less than half, you’ll have a -50% penalty instead.

So lets look at what this means and maybe a few examples.

So any time in the first 9 mins 59sec, we are solid. But at 10 mins we have to account for penalties. And if your in the dungeon for less then 25% of the total time our penalty remains -80%. If have been in between 25% and 49% of the total time then our penalty is -50%. But at 50% or longer then the penalty goes away. Clear as mud right?
Lets do some examples.
Enter at min 5, quest lasts 13 mins. No penalty.
Enter at min 11, quest lasts 16 mins. We have been in the quest for 5 mins 5/16 or 31% of the quest so we have a 50% penalty.
Enter at min 13, quest lasts for 24 mins. We have been in the quest for 11 mins or 45% of the total time so we still have a 50% penalty.
But if we waited to complete until the total time was 26 mins we would have no penalty.

Use this formula ( dungeon’s current lifetime – when you entered) / dungeon’s current lifetime = your % in quest. But the best way to avoid any penalty is to get in the quest with in that first 10 mins. But realize it will take at least 5 mins to work off 100% of any penalty.

Oh, boy. I am late. Got to run.

❤

I don’t know about you but I think there are lots of old named gear that could use a update pass. The Tome of Untold Legends, arguably the hardest non-raid items in the game to get. Some might say dual shroud green steel but I don’t think so. But almost no one bothers to run, other then TRers like myself or people looking to get into the raid. And I guess farmers…..

But what are your options for gathering these 8 pages?

A choice of 8 +5 weapons with 3-4 powers, sounds good…..Lets look at some.

A greater Elf bane +3 to umd/other chr skills/ Control Undead clickly(1/day)?

A non-DR breaking heavy pick with a natural keen (can be improved with Imp Crit: P) of maiming seeker 8

A Battleaxe Vertigo +10 Transmuting Giant bane

Well you can read the list here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Untold_Legends

But I think most will agree there is at best there are 1 or 2 “real” options if we were to turn in our hard earned pages. And most of the time that means a Skiver.

But with a little tweaking I think that we can boost these items right up. Lets see. They all get a damage dice boost +1. This is a no brainier. Then make any keen or impact natural for the weapons. Take any power that has a better tear and boost to that. X bane becomes greater X bane, Destruction becomes Imp Destruction. Add a Material. Flametouched Iron, Densewood, Adamantine, etc…. They don’t have to become instant DR breakers but at least make them more then steel.

I would also add a guild slot, or two in the case of the twinblade.

Turbine, make these weapons a little better. Litany is one of the best quests in the game. Lets have its rewards be some of the best too.

❤

PS, Oh before I forget, any time we update a old item. There should be update recipe so old versions can be updated IF the user wishes.

Lately I have been looking at my plat pile and how it is shrinking as most of what would be my incoming plat has been turning into crafting xps. All vendor trash worth breaking down in to essences might as well be a crafting xp token for all the good it does on my plat pile. BtA named loot is hot for me now. But loot worth selling on the AH? Not so much.

So in my attempt to better my odds. I have been running loot gems (again thanks Turbine, the Pax hat was a huge plat saver).

But I have been spending plat or TP on ways to get around locks. My stock pile of knock wands are lvl 15 and I just got there. So a reliable way to get open locks wouldn’t suck.

Also you know this is the first Horc that has had a chr that didn’t suck. So I have decided to play with the Marks of finding for this life and see if they give a noticeable boost.

First of all, I need to take a few of the enchantments to give a few more uses a day as one a day is kinda shitty. At least when you pop out to the vale to try things out. Getting 3 or 4 rares to drop and having to run to a shrine or pop back to the bar for a min is far from good times.

Can’t say that I have seen a huge boost in profit. But 4 or 5 chests are not the best test sample. So I will try to report back in a few days. After a few days of opening chests.

If you have played around with the marks let me know what you have found, would you?

❤

Normally I don’t mind when I see someone asking for a change. I ask for changes all the time. But when I see 5+ “ddo is too hard make it easier” requests in a matter of minutes it does start to get to me.

When I read something, I read between the lines. I know most people have this power but a lot of people don’t, or don’t know when to use it vs read what is written.

So I am reading another My.ddo blog post and I read this:

“So they added spell point regeneration but its currently capped out at 12 spell points, so its really only usefull if you’re casting level 1 spells, or have some sort of prestige spell that casts for only a few spell points. I honestly cant see why they bothered, unless they plan on raising it.”

Okay, sure not so bad. Think the writer is try to infer that the cap for echoes of power is not good enough…

More complainants….About hate gen, mob IA, hireling IA (mostly healers). Etc…

I good idea: “selectable health bar up for escort missions where you must keep an npc alive” worded very negatively as to the point to not see that it is a positive suggestion.

Then this:
“Monsters that chain cast heal are really sort of broken when soloing, Dungeon scaling really needs to be adjusted to reduce how often a monster can cast heal.”

So as I read this all I began to see is the game is too hard. Nerf plz?

Not what can I do to improve. Nothing. So yes I can tell your new. Just from your post. And I say please Turbine I know your making lots of changes to account for these “paying” people. But I am still VIP and I buy and use lot of points. Hearts, Xp pots, armor skins, etc. So please be careful when trying to balance challenge vs keeping noobs in Ddo.

Sure you don’t want people leaving because the game is too hard. But you don’t want the vets that kept the servers up for years leaving because the game has become too easy.

Balance is restored. At least for me for now.

I love options, I am very pro choices. Oh I made a funny. 🙂 Well I thought it was funny.

Okay what the heck am I talking about? This girl, “Kalari” started a thread ‘Bards want DOTS to‘. Not going to lie. Didn’t read the whole thing. Did read the original post, and how it read to me was “Hey, I would like my bards to have a Dot spell.”

And I say, why the hell not? You you said a fighter wanted a Dot I would say, I don’t know… Give me a place to start so I can think though how it might be used. But I don’t have to ask Kalari for said starting place. She gave us 3 possible examples. Tied to the three PRE line for bards. Agree or not every caster likes options. Why wouldn’t a bard also want a dot option?

Me I would go with one or two spells. Like a maybe a 3 level spell that could daze or damage all mobs that “hear you yell” damage doesn’t have to be great but something would be nice. If you had 3 or 4 damage spells on your list wouldn’t you want a few more?

Lets look at a few more ideas for bards that came to me while I was reading her post.

Crashing Symbols. A ear drum breaking clanging is banging against your brain up side your head. Dealing some about of sonic damage unless you make a save for half. Give it a duration and let it stack a lot like the new Dots we have been given in game. There is a good one person bard themed dot.

But what I would really like to see is a removal song for bards. You sing a haunting song that ending is so lovely when it ends it breaks your will to live. Will save/Fort save or die. Make it require a huge perform skill and set up the DC so it can super good.

Bards get a bad wrap in Ddo. The are jack of all trades, master of none. Okay well in Ddo they are master of the buffs and the halfassed of all. Why not focus more on the one theme that is unique to bards, MUSIC?

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