Category Archives: advice

What to Do?

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Unlike most of the time when I ask a question in the title, I really don’t have the answer. So I am really asking; What to do?

My ddo time is about steady I have found that I can do 3 or 4 quests a night on McGoggles while watching MtG videos. Aka I am running around solo because no one else is around. The wife is crushing a show on nexflix. Tobril is doing the Real Life thing (will get into that later) everyone else is off in the evening playing other games and that is fine. But that means that there is a point where I wonder if I should bother anymore?

Think that answer remains yes. I mean even 2 hours of ddo solo is better then 2 hours of just about anything else but head, right?

It is strange times for me right now. Work is once again kicking my ass. Which is a good thing for the most part. My brain has moved from DDo builds to MtG deck builds and what little spare time not devoted to MtG or DDo has gone into the garden. Overall life is good right now.

Okay back to “What to Do? Remember when I said Tobril is rocking the real life world. Well I got a txt message from him the other day saying that he bought a ton of Otto’s boxes and with the current loot/content/broken raids/whatnots he wants to grind a few lives. But I don’t know what to do.

I have a few first lifers that could use a TR but seems like a waist of a stone. I have 2 or 3 from different things. So I would be more or less leveling to 8 with Tobril then grinding out alone from there. So what that would be like 8 hours of grind? Na, that is easy.

I have a few people I am just unhappy with at the moment. Java and Samius currently stand out. But I have less then 0 plan for them. Samius was meant to be the uber wizard, but with the Destinies uber is being a Magic Missile machine counting on Double rainbow for dps, aka fun for about 2 quests. And Java is just not living up to his last life as a dog druid. Think the enchantment changes shot him in the foot.

But I have no idea what to do now.

Builds are welcome. Thoughts are welcome. Anything that gets my brain moving in the DDo world is welcome.

<3s

What would you do?

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You are level 12 holding xp for 13 for a few days so you can build up a few runs of the Sands walkups trying to make the new xp changes work for us and you loot a junk cursed ring. Looking at your gear list you are still wearing your bta lvl 7 greater false item ring aka time to level up.

Once you add the GFL it is now level 13 so you have a few days to think things over, what is the play?

You have a yellow and a colorless to work with. I will stick an image of captan smexy pants so you can’t skip down to my answer too easily.

The answer is fairly simple I think. Fear Immunity is huge. Sure we have fairly good will saves, but as we have FoM as a spell; fear effects and greater command are about the only spells that we are worried about. And I don’t know about you but if I can fail a will save I will. And then with Vitality as an option we might as well hit it and make this a huge Hp ring.

Other allowed but less good answers include a combination of the above and Blindness immunity and a +7 skill like heal or spell power. But again I think the above is the right play.

<3s

Complete and Total Indifference

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So U19 is right around the corner and some of my friends are so excited that they took the week off to rock it hard. Me I am just not all that excited and also I have a trip to Phoenix for work that will cause me to miss out on the first week high drop rates. I think at least some of my apathy for this update is due to the enchantment pass and the build shake up.

Cut to people asking me about build advice? Long story short; I don’t have answers. Yet.

But I will.

So I have been looking at builds (Vault, main forums, emails, etc) and I have been looking at the ddowiki for details of the enchantment pass. And I see a nice trend where we might have a lot of multiclass builds running around.

On the other had I see a lot X monks, 5+ fighter, 2 druid builds using axes centered builds and o wonder how many other really solid builds or out there…

But something that I don’t know if everyone has noticed or not yet but Helfs get a arcane spell fail reduction line which is real nice. I could see a heavier armored arcane tank make a come back at least for me. And that makes me happy.

Guess the point is please keep asking me those questions helping you will drive me to look at things and that might get me excited about the change. Maybe.

<3s

FoT number 20 == Lots of Work for Me

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One of the many things that Samius has been waiting on for his gear load out changes has been the Stormreaver’s Napkin. It more or less is the key to a totally new gear layout. Well it took 20 runs but I finally have one. Now all the gear hunting/farming that I have been putting off needs to happen.

Woot?

The thing is I really don’t know what to do.

I can wear my blue dragon armor now and dig up +3 int goggles or even better a eH or better blue helm. But honestly I am debating a change to white???

Long story short I just don’t know how to lay out anything right now. I know that the cloak is my base aka a non-swapping point for the base int/chr and I have to go from there.

Ideas?

Inbox: Advice for Bobby pt2

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Earlier in the week I started to answer an email with some advice for a player I called Bobby, and today I want to tackle the other big topic in his email playing DDo with someone that shares your bed.

New information:
Bobby has a non-English speaking girlfriend (and I don’t really know if they share a bed)
This GF, Pepper (as I struggle to pick a girl’s name and see my Iron Man toys on the desk) was a DDo player (casual) but has had a year long forced break due to hardware problems. And feels she is back to newb status.
No mater what Pepper will always lean more on the Casual side.

Okay first of all, having people you love share your hobbies just makes those hobbies more fun. But at the same time they can also suck the fun out of things. And I am about to go in to some things that might get me in trouble but I would not give up playing with my wife for anything.

Okay there are hurdles both in playing and in your relationship. And there is not a lot of tips I can give you to avoid those, all I can say is look back at my other main tip of being honest and try to power through. Knowing when to shut up is also a killer skill, one I might over use… Okay things that bother me or can if I let them and tips, some or both at once.

Comments made about how things are going often are just venting and not really directed at anyone or at the group. This is my main issue playing with my wife. She is a glass is half empty girl at least 80% of the time. And I work VERY hard to not be the same; she might say that is just me arguing with her all the time. And she is probably a little right, but mostly if I am having a good time (and if I am playing I am normally having a good time) then I don’t want to see everything with that “the sky is falling” point of view. At the same time I was told once that I have a bit of a “fix it” mentality, and that wanting to fix everything is very male. If there is a problem I try to fix it and if I can’t then I need to stop and let it go. So often I take this venting to heart and try to fix things when this happens I need to realize it is going on and I need to let it go. Trying to “fix things” will just make it worse. Oh and game bugs, you have to try to be immune to them bothering you.

Being “bull headed” or pressing on verse retreating. This is another tough one to explain, but my wife (Tobril has this same issue as well but often with different issues) is good with a challenge to a point. Then things hit a wall and she wants to find a path of less resistance and as the un-official team leader it is often my job to make the call on no we can keep on or your right lets cut our losses. All I can say is you have to be truly honest when evaluating those situations. And if you are in a group and they are the leader then you have no grounds to argue with them it is their call.
Last one today is about giving them advice. This is another place where I struggle as if you don’t like my advice then that is on you but if you give your wife advice and then she decides she doesn’t like it then you get to sleep with one eye open. I think the best you can do is try to answer questions the best you can but sometimes you just have to point to the wiki or the forums and say I can’t help you. You have to decide this one for yourself and that can cause fireworks also…

Did that help at all?
<3s

Want to be a Better Player?

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This is the single best thing you can do to improve your DDo play skillz. DEVELOP WASD skills.

DDo has a fairly amazing combat system, by far the most interactive of any game I have ever played online. And might rival more then a few offline console games.

Build matters a lot less then your ability to not be where the damage is when it comes staying alive and the best players I have ever seen almost never stop watching their positioning. They are always staying ahead of the where the damage is while keeping a high DPS level.

This was very apparent to me last night when the wife and I were rocking Vale quests on our TRs mainly in Running with the Devils and not taking massive amounts of light damage. 150 points a ray btw… or as I like to call them lazer death rayz!

Not that there weren’t any deaths, (although we cleared to and through the tunnels really well and thought we were in amazing shape until the first chest area) with just the 2 of us and our healers, because there was a few deaths. But there were a lot fewer deaths (ie 0) when we could keep moving to manually dodge those damn Lazerz. When we had room to maneuver we were able to stay ahead of things, in places were the numbers were overwhelming and we had less room to keep moving is where we choked.

So what I am saying is, if you are rocking a solid build and you are still struggling keep a eye out for those people that seem to excel and watch them move and I bet you will see them dancing around the screen with those WASD skills.

<3s

Inbox: Advice for Bobby pt 1

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I have always said I am happy to throw my tips into the ring on almost any topic, and then I got a real whopper in the old mail inbox this morning. It is so big I can’t get to all of it today, which is good as that allows me more time to mull some answers over but I think I can shoot from the hip at a few parts.

A little back history with out copying and pasting parts of the email and the things that I think are important.

The writer of this email (hence forth Bobby) started playing DDo on the recommendation of a friend.
Bobby’s Friend is now his guild leader.
Said Guild leader happens to be many time zones separated from Bobby.
Guild is very small and not super active when Bobby is on.
Guild leader has alts in another guild and is fairly active on those alts.
I don’t think Bobby is allowed in this other guild due to it being a local guild.
Joining said guild wouldn’t help a lot anyway as most of those player are separated by many time zones like the guild leader.
Bobby has reached a DDo plateau and wants to reach higher levels but is unsure how to proceed as well as is worried that this guild doesn’t have the structure to support him on his desired path.

Questions I want to try and answer today:
How does one grow in DDo?
How can you tell if it is time to leave a guild?
How does one leave a guild, (with out a lot of hurt feelings)?

How does one grow in DDo? To me one grows in any field when they set measurable goals and works towards those goals. Ideally once reaching or realizing those goals are no longer achievable or desirable you set new ones and that process repeats.

So that was a really long line of crap. I mean what does that mean? How does that even relate to Bobby’s situation? Something I didn’t share was a short list of goals that Bobby sent in, design builds, learning/teaching and to BE better (I assume at playing DDo). To me all three of those things are very measurable goals.

Design a Build, this is not hard, grab the planner and get to work. Feel free to take one of the ideas that I have throw out over the years and build something. Not every build will be good. Hell if you’re lucky 1 out of 10 will be worth wild after the vale. Think I am at like 1 for 20… Build one try it, take what you learned, tweak it and then try again. As long as you are not trying to do all your testing on your main via TRs I think you will be okay. I think the Iconics have real potential in this regard, as throw away build concepts.

Teach/Learn, again this is not hard. Pick a quest you think you know well or want to know better and learn it via looking for a guide/s in the form of walkthroughs/pug/forum/channels then once you are a master of that quest (ideally something like Tempest spine simi unloved by the masses) then start throwing up teaching runs where you are the teacher. Raids are always a good place to start. There are always new players that want to learn the ropes and in need of a few good vets to help.

Lets jump to Guild talk… It is tough; I have never left a guild. Tobril and I founded the DG and even when we butt heads we have worked things out and we have each had different aspects of guild leadership that we have gone through. But I can tell you this like in most relationships being forward and honest with the other person is often the best way.

The other day Tobril was being a little whiny (think he had the on call phone) but he was motivated to do things and I was a little apathetic but trying to be a helper, we wanted to run some challenges for the Arty Cannith ring. I was moving a little slow, plus I remembered from the other day doing the same there was some things we talked about doing, like remembering a hire to heal kobolds and grabbing my Rodic’s wand for boosting hires/pets. And we had a little moment of hey your pissing me off, well good because you’re pissing me off. But when he realized that even though it seemed like I was dragging my feet I was being a team player his mood changed and my mood changed because I cleared my chest and because his mood changed and we had a good hour or two of running challenges.

So I say first off if you’re not putting it all out there then that is on you. If your friend blows up then that is on him. But I think real friends will see that you are trying to be upfront and support you as long as you give them the chance.

That said there is two ways to leave a guild, slowly and all at once. I recommend slowly, but by that I don’t mean leave one bank alt in that remains on the active list with out giving anything back to the guild. I mean either set up a channel or use your friend’s list to keep in touch and be willing to make time to play with your former guildies or if you want to keep some alts in be sure to play those alts from time to time so not to be a leach. I know from being part of a guild leadership guild goals are always shifting but there is nothing more aggravating then a player that is active but doesn’t play guild alts and ends up dragging the guild down. You just don’t know what to do with those players.

How to find a new guild? That will need to wait for another post.

<3s