Category Archives: Uncategorized

Falling so Hard

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So one of my big fears of playing the Arty class is coming true. I am falling for it fairly hard. I am already thinking of doing a major juggle and switching guys in to different kinds of Arties. I was telling a guildie the other day (think it was Phlor) that they are the most complex class I have ever played. It takes so much concentration to make them sing.

The thing is even with all the things I love about them and I truly love to play this life, I feel I am busy doing all the cool thing and not really watching what I am doing. And that is leading to play error deaths. For example think I died 3 times in Tide Turns last night. WFT? Twice while getting the traps and once clearing the last room. Cleared everything but the water Ellies, while Fopo on his Pally life dropped the boss. Went to get them and took 6 shots from Frost Lance. As I had died earlier I lost my ship resistances and had so much else going on I forgot to cast them on myself so my 2 points of cold resistance from the ranger life stopped 12 points of the 204+ points of damage. Just a lot of things to keep track of over a normal caster.

I want to do a little break down, mainly for myself but you might dig it.

Casting: They have some really good spells, unfortunately they cap out at 6th level. Right now at level 9, I have three slots for direct damage spells. Static Shock, Lightning Sphere and Blast Rod. As I said they are very good. I really love Lightning Sphere to the point I even keep a copy of it unmetaed just for breaking things. Did you know its damage works through walls and stuff? So all those low level quests with 4+ breakables behind a gate can be broken with out having to stop to open things. Making racking up a ransack bonus a ton faster, and it is way nicer to make concentration check for a spell if a million little mobs are hitting for 1 or 2 points of damage vs trying to open a door/valve and being stopped every time you take 1+ point of damage. They are also loaded up with indirect damage spells, with the weapon buffs and haste like armor buff. Think I will be swapping to Lighting motes and carrying Haste scrolls however, as Armor of Speed doesn’t counter slow and at these levels the mobs spam me with that spell.

Wands: Boy howdy. Okay this is really the Artificer Knowledge feats in action but I most notice it with wands. Vendor shield, resistance (when I remember to use them), Fox cunning and other stat boosting wands are all golden. I even have been using a web wand to good effect. And I need to remember to nab an ice storm wand or two. I have the feeling that they will rock.

Melee: Okay this is a lot different now that I am level 9 and swapped out my claw set. I still do 20-30 normal numbers in the first melee slot. But I almost always hit even with power attack on thanks to Insightful Strikes but the trail of other numbers is almost sick at this level, right now I have a Icy burst, Lighting burst of Pure good scimitar from level 4 that I am still using because of this trail of numbers. Base + icy+shock+ good+ rune arm + weapon buff. Most swings of 18+ crit for icy and shock burst effects. That is a fairly impressive list of numbers. I have taken to using a race required paralyzing Sword with Icy burst and still the string of numbers is impressive.

Ranged: To be honest I don’t do a ton of ranged combat this live other then the rune arm. But I made a quick shock of pure good heavy repeater just to have around in case. And I have to say once boosted with Insightful Strikes and acid damage and using the auto reload clickly plus a rune arm the ranged damage is very nice. Did the Pit on Elite last night and I was able to stand up top during the end fight and let Fopo run around and get the mobs and it was very nice.

Pets: So the dog has issues. Mostly with weird bugs. Like if I go below decks on my guild ship I have to leave the boat for the dog to reappear, as well as how the dogs can’t use guild slotted items, or when it just decides to lock up and you have to dismiss it and re-summon it to make it do anything again. There are plenty of none bug related issues like how there is only a weapon and armor slot. They are dogs hello! No dog collar. /shakes head. And once you make a module and out grow it you can sell it or break it down for mats because there are no way to recycle that module as a new module. Oh other pets, have you seen the Flame Turret? Would like to see an something like an auto ballista or a catapult for say boss fights at cap but the flame turret is fun at level so far.

Any way thinks I am doing with my arty that is working and not in the coming days.

❤

Lots of Hate

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One of the worries I have/had leveling Samyus (if you don’t remember he is now my AC tank) is having enough Dps/hate to keep agro with out having to spam the Intim button. My first attempt to tank once hitting 20 was a normal tod, where I got to play the Sully tank. And it went very well. Think I did a run down a few days back, even. But there was an arty to make my Sword (eFang) good aligned (Slotting it with good is next on my to do list. I swear) and even though I spammed the intim button I didn’t think holding agro was an issue, but of course that was with arty help. However, on Saturday I got to tank Sully in Tod again. Once again lead by Tobril. But this time he didn’t get an arty, I felt a little hosed….

Lets skip to level two of this run down. We all get started on the boss, the kiter takes off and life it good for 30- 40 secs. When the kiter goes down. Tobril yells for the back up kiter to go and to make with the mass cures until the new kiter gets the shadows off us. Not sure what happened with the healing. There were 3 people with divine symbols and a bard. I know that what your icon is doesn’t mean a lot but come on you can heal some, right?

Anyway, half the part wipes. Let alive is the kiter, Tobril, myself and two of the three healers and I think the bard. Shadows are hitting me for about 103 a tick. At this rate I am dead real soon. But I drink a pot and swing, swing swing, pot and repeat. Meanwhile I am telling the healers to get it together, and through a mass or two. I am down to 110 hp when I finally get a heal and then people start getting raised, and a recovery happened. Think the bard was paying attention and ended up saving us. But were close to taking a ride on the fail train.

Mean while I noticed that I had taken agro of the main boss from Tobril. Kinda surprising as I know he is mostly geared out. But I don’t think he was trying to hold agro over trying to stay alive. My hate on the other hand just happens. My efang is fully powered with the dragon marks and being in stance makes a lot of hate, so other then swapping to a smaller sword (and lowering my AC in the process) there is not a lot I can do to lower my hate. And I really didn’t want to lower my AC just then.

Moving on to part three, I was worried that with out a good I would loose agro against some of the barbs and other fighters in the raid. So I kept power attack on with the bard buffs I want to say my AC was again in the 86 range. So I was good with that. This time I watched a lot closer to when I was getting heals and whatnot. Looking for how well my AC is working and instead of hitting the intimidate button for the extra hate, I let it roll waiting until I needed to intim to regain the agro if I lost it.

On the healing, I never had more then 100 points of damage when a heal was cast. Most of the time I was in the 20-30 points of damage range. Never missed the extra 5 ac from combat expertise. So Ac is working well enough for normals well enough.

As for Hate/Agro I never needed to Intim, even with my yellow numbers. Didn’t need to swap into my Swashbuckler for the extra double strike. Don’t remember seeing a Disintegration proc. So all in all hate was working. And am very pleased with how easy someone can build an Ac tank. Yes I gathered a few epic items, the sword and the Cavalry Plate, nothing super hard to get.

Need to do some testing against Tobril soon and I want to finishing slotting a few little things (Good on the sword at least, would like to slot Dex on my slayer ring).But I don’t want to go nuts before the new pack hits. I think there might be some real winners coming with the level cap raise.

❤

GenCon 101:

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I have had a few questions for how to handle a first trip to Gencon. So here is my advice in a nut shell.

1, Listen to this ep of the CtH, DDO Cocktail Hour Episode 21, Gen Con Indy 2010

End of list. 🙂

If you don’t want to listen to a whole show to get the over all scope I will try and knock out a quick list for you.

1, Stay busy. But not super every hour of the day is planed, busy.

2, Try not to do more then 6-8 hours in a row with out a break. If you wouldn’t work for that long with out a break why would you try and game like that?

3, Have snacks handy. Con food is pricy, and the lines are long. Sometimes a quick snack is just the ticket.

4, Same as above for drinks. There are normally water containers for “free” (you all ready paid) ice water. Have a bottle you can fill from time to time.

5, Stop to eat, sleep and SHOWER. You will already be a stinky geek. But try and help yourself out and be less stinky.

6, Have cash/budget. There will be stuff you want to buy. Be careful not to break the bank. Have a budget either in cash (can’t spend what you don’t have) or a mental amount. What ever you have planed add in an extra 20-30 % for didn’t plan to play this items…

7, Dress right. Walking shoes, light dress and have a pack with a hoodie. (some rooms will be cool others will me quite hot.)

Think those are the main things. If you have other thoughts for the con newbs use the comments.

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Tank at Work

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So Wednesday night between Epic runs Tobril and I ran a ToD. He on his tank and me on mine. And it was a blast. This is how it went down.

Before we start we had one divine, a bard an an arty for heals. So more then enough if everyone has their B or better game on. But that was not how we started. We started with Lolz.

Part One, Tobril took wings and everyone else was on the Jailer. However he was in a throwing mood and for a while it was get to him or have him port to me and then work my way to the angels and get thrown again. We lost one or two squishy people to getting thrown into spikes. But once the Jailer died the judge went down fairly quick as everyone was full on dps at that point.

Part Two, I am not 100% sure what happened as just as we were wrapping up the Judge my battery back up started going full on nuts beeping and squealing to no end. As the modem as well as the wife’s computer both use it, a swap must be handled carefully. So she shutdown her computer and I logged out of game as soon as possible with out hurting the party and after looting my chests. 🙂

As soon as everything is off we swap things and plug things in to different places and get back in game. I get logged in and started running to part two as things started going poorly. People started to die. And then it was me standing outside the door to part two and a room full of shadows and a boss at 8%…. Thats okay. Think we will try again.

This time part one and two go much smoother. No deaths and all fights are a lot more under control.

So I get to play tank for real.

Right before I started to worry a little as I didn’t have another Dex item to swap into when booting up. But I bought some cats grace pots and had the Yugo pots when the AH didn’t have a +6 ring for sell. Thankfully after drinking up, my AC stayed the same.

Tobril took Horoith and I got Sulo. Don’t know how much damage I took from Sulo but it didn’t feel like a lot. I was always full or mostly full in the Hp department. My hate was in good form. Having some of the hardest hitters I know about going full on dps mode vs my AC mode and I was able to keep the agro so that felt good.

Sulo was dead with 30+ sec left on the only haste that was cast. And the Arcane was trying to get a fresh one cast when we defeated Horoth. So there was much Dps. 🙂

As for rings I got a Gnawed ring, not the Cinder’s I am hunting; but a fair swap ring until I pick one up. And a good ring for “I NEED MORE AMP” over Ac ring for later.

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Epic Tuesday is Dead, Long Live Epic Wednesday

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For the last few weeks Tobril and I have been talking about moving Epic night to another night. For a few reasons, but the mainlyTuesdays never really work all the well for him/the guild.

The night started off well. As soon as I logged on Oncler asks me to join a eDQ. The run goes fairly smooth in my opinion. But as a bard (Butterz is my main Epic person with Samius in TR land) I didn’t drink any pots to heal. I just used what I had when I felt I needed to and meleed most of the time. There were a few shards and whatnot in the box for people but nothing but a much needed token for me.

There was talk of more raids but I need seals and a shard to round out Samyus’ gear in the short term. So we broke off and picked up Phlor and did the normal epic runs for seals and shards.

Snitch and Tide Turns went fairly quickly for three people. Picked up a scroll in each. A Big Top and a Edge. No seals or shards. 😦

After Tobril wanted to Tod. What the hell I said. And swapped to Samyus. Tobril had me tank Sulo. I will tell the Tod story later maybe as a bonus for today, idk… But I had lots of fun and lets leave it at that for now.

I know we switched to our FvSs at that point and did Snitch again. That run was very funny. In the first room right off the bat Tobril got Greater Commanded. While I took a Comet Fall and got knocked down. When I stood up, I triggered a symbol of stunning and rolled a 1. And was stunned to death. With me dead all the mobs turned on Tobril who was still laying down. When he stood up a comet fall finished him off also. Restart, This time with Magic Circle.

Take two goes super smooth, at least until the chest monster. When we both broke our smiting weapons against its head. I had my not as good back up of a holy smiting maul for Shroud portals and ground the last little bit out. And right be for Crateous we killed a rat with an Vest scroll with my name on it. Yep, it was a three scroll night. And they were all good/useable. 🙂

Wrap up in good order and we both get seals, but for the Wand and not the Great axe, aka why I keep running this quest.

So over all it was a super good night. I got to hang with both Tobril and Phlor. Got some good scrolls, and the wife was very happy all night playing the Beta. Btw I don’t know what I can say about things I saw over her shoulder. But I can say she was very pleased with things and what I saw looked very cool.

Maybe I will read the NDA and see what I can say for those of you that can’t check it out yourself.

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Starting FvS Build using Vet Status 2

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Phlor has been thinking about branching out of Paladin as his “only” class. It took a lot of convincing but now he is splashing for evasion on some builds and seems to really like it. And now he is thinking about a “healer” class. I have talked him in to doing a test run before he Trs his main. I am afraid that he might hit a tough spot while leveling and bolt. But if it is just a throw away alt then I think that is less likely. And I think that if you don’t see the core ideas behind a class in the first 7 levels then you have deeper problems.

Anyway thinking about my own play experience and thinking back to when I was first leveling the different divine classes (play styles) the one that was the fastest/funnest to level was Javabot as the WF FvS. And while I still have 4 or 5 capped divines, Java gets pulled for many tasks. For example over the last few days my wife as decided to cap out her main so she can TR. It has fallen to Java to help her through the quests she has left to finish this life.

With all that in mind I give you (first 7 levels) my idea of a simple WF FvS. Btw it looks like almost everyone’s first life WF FvS…

Level 7 Warforged Favored Soul – alignment something good at least until standing umb is 20+
Hit Points: 160
Spell Points: 527
BAB: 5510
Fortitude: 10
Reflex: 5
Will: 4

Starting Stats, 32 Points
Strength – 17
Dexterity – 8
Constitution – 18
Intelligence – 1
Wisdom – 6
Charisma – 12

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of everything at level 7

Skills
Concentration full ranks.
And one other I like Intimidate or Use Magic Device. With a Tomes early or with a lesser after eating a +3 tome you could lose a point or 3 from Concentration to get two cross class skills maxed.

Feats
Level 1
Feat: (Diety) Favored by the Lord of Blades
Feat: (Selected) Power Attack

Level 3
Feat: (Selected) Toughness

Level 5
Feat: (Favored Soul Bonus) Energy Resistance: Electricity

Level 6
Feat: (Selected) Maximize Spell

Level 7
Enhancement: Favored Soul Damage Boost I
Enhancement: Favored Soul Damage Boost II
Enhancement: Bladesworn Transformation
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Favored Soul Prayer of Life I
Enhancement: Favored Soul Prayer of Incredible Life I
Enhancement: Favored Soul Smiting I
Enhancement: Favored Soul Smiting II
Enhancement: Favored Soul Life Magic I
Enhancement: Favored Soul Life Magic II
Enhancement: Favored Soul Toughness I
Enhancement: Favored Soul Toughness II
Enhancement: Warforged Constitution I
Enhancement: Warforged Healer’s Friend I
Enhancement: Warforged Power Attack I

If you have a Question you want me to answer, you can use the comments, send a PM in game or here, or email me @ samius@ddococktailhour.com

❤

Question from Phlor: Trinkets

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This morning I have a letter sitting in my inbox from Phlor. It reads “I am thinking of Cannith crafting a trinket item for lower levels for my main when I TR next. Any suggestions?”

Oh boy, where to start….

For me the trinket slot is a heavily swap slot. And I have many different trinkets that get various amount of love as I level up. I will rattle of a few important ones at the end but lets look at the crafting a few.

I almost always start with a look at the following page, “Crafting Recipes by Gear” from EllisDee37

Looking at the trinket section of the page there are lots of good things that can go on a trinket. As always the suffix section is about 10x as good as the prefix section but there are some gems in the prefix section anyway.

So lets just throw some things together that I may have in my pack/s.

Nat Armor of battle skill
Nat Armor of dodge +1
Of dodge +2
Potency of Lore
Of True Seeing
Of Absorption Electrical

Just to name a few that I have around. If I were to say make one for a melee focused a simple “of Melee Alacrity” or “Nat Armor of dodge +1” are two of my favorites. Thankfully lots of the same bonuses you can add to a trinket can also go on Goggles and some on Bracers. So if your an AC build dodge +1 can go in one place dodge +2 on the other.

One last think about crafting trinkets, if you can buy the ones from the store. Sure you can use Shroud Shards of power as trinkets but they are BtC and the wipe when you TR. Where the store ones are BtA even after crafting. And they don’t wipe in the TR cache as if you need to leave them in the cache as they can go in the shared bank and can be held by an alt, saving you valuable space.

So lets hit some of the not craft able trinkets I carry around on most lives. There are some that I also carry if I am doing the caster thing. But these are more or less always used.

Bottle of Air
Phiarlan Pendant of Time

Greater Bold Trinket
Greater Stalwart Trinket
Some times I even dig out the other cove trinkets. But the two above I always have at hand….
Dark Blue Ioun Stone (upgraded- lives where I am the trapper)
Pale Lavender Ioun Stone (upgraded)
Voice of the Master
Mummified Bat (there is something to be said about having a unique icon to click for as your free falling)
Bloodrage Symbiont
Pouch of Jerky
Head of Good Fortune
Shard of Xoriat
Shimmering Arrowhead

Arty in Action, Day One and a Half

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Friday night I TRed Samius into an arty. With the notion I would just gear up and play with the rune arms and what not, maybe get to level 2 to do so. Then Saturday we capped out Sinfully, Fopo’s alt on the completionest train with me, in Sins of Attrition. Meaning that he could TR also and he did. Full on xp time bitches! Except the wife is wanting to think about coming along now. So I spent some time Sunday rocking her through some xp.

But Fo and I did get about 4-5 hours of TR time with the holiday and whatnots. I know some of you haven’t bought artificer yet. And don’t want to read a ton about them so they keep holding out for a sale or hoping for the favor. And I am sorry but here are my thoughts from lvel 0-5 and odds are good that there will be a day or two of them a week. Sorry.

Okay, lets start off at level 1: No rune arms until level 2. 😦 But other then that level 1 is just a stepping stone. Dug out an BtA repeating xbow of Pure Good. Swore a lot about forgetting to buy returning bolts before TRing. Ran to the Cannith crafting machines to make some bolts didn’t see a level assigned to them and played Error, Error, Error making +3 Holy bolts (level more then 1), +1 Holy bolts (again lvl more then 1) +1 acid bolts (lvl 2). grrrrr! So I ran to the gen vendor and bought 300 normal bolts. Still ran out fairly soon and ended up finishing the quest with a normal club I happened to have found and not sold yet. Btw the dog is very cute at level 1. A quick docent of Invulnerability and an acid module and the dog is good for a few levels.

Level 2, rune arms check. Real weapon check (+1 icy burst of pure good longsword BtA with Masters’ Touch) Have to say the little burning hands rune arm is not bad at level 2. From level 2 to 3 was lots of fun. Really like Static Shock. It has a fair range and my Dcs are not bad, max INT a +2 hat and that past live as a Sorc at work.

Level 3, I fell in love with the Lightning Sphere spell. It brakes boxes (thru walls/locked doors btw), it stuns mobs, it is a nice aoe and it has a nice lobing effect. Fopo said it looks like slow pitch/bowling with a dragon’s eye. It is a very smooth spell. Hope it holds up well enough. Swapped to Flicker it was fine enough but in hindsight wished I had remembered the Candlelight.

Level 4 involved a weapon swap to a Icy burst Holy of Pure good Scimitar again thanks to Master’s touch. I also switched my feats some and took the first mark of making. Wanted a way to heal the dog some and this was the best way at the time. Soon I hope to just have room to take a repair spell proper but as I am still healing fine with just pots with out the construct essence feat so I thought I could shift it down some. Oh and Cove trinkets for more Hp or really just more damage…:)

Level 5 is a big one. Gear swap heaven, Full Abishai set is great here.
Profane Natural Armor Bonus +1,
Profane Strength +1,
Profane Constitution +1,
Evocation Caster Level Bonus +1,
Conjuration Caster Level Bonus +1

One of the few classes that can use the full thing over just a 3 piece. Also VoM and Mantle time. It is good to have True seeing available again. As well as my +2 goggles of battle and a better false life belt. Doing this TR thing a few times really helps with what gear goes where thing.

Rune arms: Where to start level 5 gives us Khyber’s Fury which I thought would be the best one available at the level and I have to say I was right so far. It is a beast. The Exploding Fire Shot is super powerful and fitting in fort via the rune arm makes fitting in the 5 piece Abishai set doable.

I also now have room to fit in elemental weapons for myself. I was scrolling it for Fopo and the puppy before but now that I can fit it in for myself it is so sweet. I am sure you all know but my string of numbers is base, icy, holy, pg, rune arm and elemental weapon. If crit add in Icy burst and if that crit is a 20 add the Shocking Blow damage. It is cool to see that much damage fling across the screen at such low levels. If I had some of those light pots and or a weapon with the force damage added that would be 10 rows of damage dice per hit. That is a ton of damage at level 5……

Have to say I am super pleased as to how the Arty is playing at low levels. It is by far one of the most challenging builds I have ever played. Rune arm, spell, spell, melee rune arm all at the same time. I have the felling that it might hold my interest for a long time, which is not want I want in a run to 20 and TR build… But if the wife wants to TR right away I wont have an issue TRing one of my off Casters into an arty to play catch up with her as if she needs any of my help.

Anyway work time.
❤

I have a Cool Problem

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I am looking at the feat/feat order for my arty life. And I have a problem I have never had before. I have 3 feats that I don’t really have a super duper plan for right now. Don’t get me wrong I can put things in but I am not used to having so many feat slots at helpful levels.

Here just look

1 (human bonus) Augment Summoning – take it early and rock summons as long as possible.
1 (normal) Power attack
3 (normal) Barb past life- more Hp now!
4 (arty bonus) Construct Essence – more healing options
6 (normal) Maximize or Empower – just starting to have some real combat spells other then buffs
8 (arty bonus) Maximize or Empower – take the other spell damage boosting feat.
9 (normal) Quicken – starting to get hit hard enough that I want it around
12(normal) Marks of Making 1
12(arty bonus) Marks of Making 2 – start to grab those bonus crafting levels and free healing
15 (normal) ????
16 (arty bonus) Mark of Making 3 – final Mark time to rock some crafting levels during down time.
18(normal) ???
20 (art bonus) ??? – but does it really mater a lot, I plan to TR again almost right away.

Now there are feats to put in those slots, Cleave, Great Cleave, Imp Sunder, Toughness, Heighten (maybe) past life feats like the Wizard one, Insightful Reflexes and others.

But no more must needs. It is weird. If I splash 2 monk levels for Evasion and feats then there are more options with a gain of +1 feats when ever I need it.

Anyway something to think about. This Arty life will have some fun choices to make at leveling time.

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