What the Frack? Yep we have a rare double post. So there must be something I really want to talk about. Last night I stayed up late to level Samius to 7. Then I spent another 30-40 mins getting all dressed up.

A new outfit. Life shield of invulnerability with a med guild slot. Aka +15 hps. Then I hit the AH to look for rings with a med guild slot. 70K later boom. Wizardry 3 and sloted with a med power cystal, +60 sp. Using the ring lets me replace my med guild FF booties with the Boots of Corrosion, allowing me to go boots, bracers, cloak for the Might of the Abishai set. My Mummified Bat will take over FF duty when needed.

Might of the Abishai set: 3 Item Set Bonus: Profane Natural Armor Bonus +1, Profane Strength +1, Evocation Caster Level Bonus +1. The Str and Evocation bonus is handy.

I put on the Raven’s set mostly because the shock gloves wont do me any good. But pluses to wisdom (for will saves), dex and a straight up bonus to reflex saves. Very handy.

I put on the Siren’s Charm mostly for con, but the sonic resistance is also very handy. The matching belt mostly do to completing the set for some extra AC, the belt alone is a big help from no ac. And I have been starting to get the occasional disease from undead and trogs and what not….

The main gear swap no one really gets to see is my hat. I was able to graft a GFL +10 concentration hat during the cove event and from level 7 to level 13 it is the best helm I could have. Total live saver.

So what does that leave me with? 131 hp and 935 sp. I am starting to get the hang of how this life will play. Move, target, spell, spell, spell kill everything. Most of my spells fall into 3 camps, buffs. Jump, run faster, night sheild…Normal shield might be better for ac, but I am using a shield just not for ac…

Then I have fire spells, scorch and fire ball, burning hands if you count the clickly…

Then Lighting spells. Shocking Grasp, Electric Loop, Lightning Bolt. I am getting tons of mileage out of these spells. Mostly do to I have clicklies of spark made for level 3 and lower. Not so for inferno, yet. 🙂

Right now it feels very click, click, clicky. I miss being about to do a few other things. And I really do feel like everything is based on how big my blue bar is….

❤

What do you think would be more xp, for a lvl 6 character? Ghost of a Chance, Legend of Two-Toed Tobias and Prove Your Worth or hard then Elite Walk the Butcher’s Path and Durk’s Got A Secret? If you said Butcher’s Path and Durk’s then you would be right.

What takes less time? Yep Butcher’s Path and Durk’s again. The Butcher’s Path on Elite took the longest at 4 mins. Durk’s on hard and elite we both in the 2 min range.

Why other then “mixing it up” would I bother to run any of the 3BC quests? The xp wasn’t good for the quest, let a lone xp per minute. The loot/ end rewards are/were junk.

So how to fix things? I think quests should be about 500-750 xp a minute if you know exactly how to complete them, and move a long as fast as possible. That would make most of those 3BC quests about 3-4k base vs their current 1.5k.

There loot tables could be adjusted… But I think some kinda of small collectible drop like the scarabs/ tapestries/shield pieces in the orchard would be really smooth. Maybe with some named boots or sashes (belts).

They wouldn’t have to be great, just solid for levels 5-7. Some were about the abashi set and the red fen sets. And have a sea goers/dock worker/fisher man feel.

Something like a guard + a Resistance. I don’t have a name… yet… but fire guard + 10 fire resistance would make a fair belt at level 5.

An item that gives +2 to hit, and weapon finesse would be different.

Or maybe do it like a cross between the scarabs and Chronoscope…. drop collectibles but get a a end rewards list to pick from and have a growing set bonus if you wear a few of the items. Maybe it grants Crushing wave guard when enough items are worn.

IDK..

They quests are fun enough. And are okay on the whole difficulty thing. The puzzles are really good. But if the xp blows and there is no quality loot why bother?

This would be a great place if they wanted to add some way to add a hook point or two to a guild ship. Making it a drop that happens out here would really liven up 3BC…

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There is a post on the boards with a guy that wants to make an AC wizard. Mostly for style. Here is a link Got me thinking about AC again….

Cove items are crazy good for ac…

Epic Cavalry Plate 16 ac / 3 max dex /25% asf
Mithral
Demonic Shield
DR 5/Chaotic
Resistance Save +5
Superior False Life
Empty Blue Augment Slot (remember blue slots can be come -15% Arcane Spell Failure chance or Greater Nimbleness)

Epic Duelist’s Leathers 8 ac / 12 max dex/ 10% asf
Feat: Mobility
Epic Nimbleness
Balance +15
Attack Bonus +2
+4 AC Dodge bonus
Empty Blue Augment Slot

If you can fill out a 12 dex (aka bonus*2+10 or 34 dex) then your looking at more AC then any other armor out there. Add in the dagger tooth belt if you have even more dex. Lets not forget the +4 dodge bonus.

Is there any reason a “Caster” can’t wear these armors? Not really. Although I would use the Cavalry Plate over the Leathers if I didn’t have evasion. The Plate lets us aim for a good ac with out gimping con and str. A low base dex can max its dex bonus with a tome and +6 item, if we are using the epic swashbuckler then we have a +2 exp dex bonus also.

So a possible Ac break down using the Epic Duelist’s Leathers slotted for 0 asf. 34 dex…

10 base
8 Duelist’s Leathers
12 dex +2 if dex is 38 and have daggertooth belt.
8 Epic Swashbuckler
2 Alchemical (shield and armor)
5 Deflection bonus
4 Heightened Awareness
1 Feat: Dodge
2 Dodge Chaosgarde Bracers/ Epic Cloak of Night
3 Chattering Ring
4 AC Dodge bonus from Duelist’s Leathers

51
3-5 Natural pots, ring of earth, ranger, hat lots of ways for a natural bonus
2 Recitation
1 haste
59

5 Combat Expertise
1 House D guild buff
1 House K guild buff
4 bard song
5 paladin aura

76?

With 2 more points if you get a super high dex.. or go halfling for +1 more?

Picking a sorc savant line seems to be a lot like a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There is no clear right pick and no one really understands all the rules. Okay I am sure there are a few people that understand Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock but I am not one of them…

But I do/did understand Magic the Gathering. In Magic there are 5 colors red, black, blue, green, and white. They float a round a color wheel and most of the cards fit in to an ideology dealing with their color.

The colors to the right and left of a particular color are allies to that color. While the 2 colors across from that particular color are enemy colors. So White’s allies are green and blue. And it’s enemy colors are red and black. Simple right?

So as I started thinking about my sorc line and the bugs and spells effecting each element I thought of magic’s color wheel and sketched out my own version for the elements.

I wanted to be an air savant. I mean it looks great, Abundant Step (I still think that should be instantaneous fly for all arcane), really big call lighting, and good walls and both new big dot spells. And all we give up is F2S and a few clouds. I can make that work.

Wait!

Looks like call lighting might have a bug with air savant. Or it might be a earth spell and not an air spell… Wouldn’t mind a dev response on this one…. But either way air is out, because I still want big call lightings. I am seeing reports of 1000 point normal hits everu 2-4 secs. Not bad for a clickit and forget it dot.

So we look at air’s ally elements and make one of them our focus. Fire has wall of fire, one of the main leveling spells. And water has the better (damage) first tear clicky (between fire/ice) and one of the two big dots.

I really don’t want to miss out trying the call lighting storm, but I am looking at not getting it until level 12 or 15 depending on how badly I want it. So at the moment I am leaning towards Fire with a heavy tilt towards Lighting and lighting spells. With hope that there will be some word/fix for call lighting storm. I would rather be a air savant but going fire gives the most wiggle room loosing the least amount of what I like to have when leveling. And if it turns out that call lighting sucks I can lesser out of the marks and into necro focus feats….

❤

Last night was one of those nights where things just went well. Leveled Samius to 3 super close to 4. And ran an Abbot raid with Java. And while not the smoothest run, there was 3 good pieces of loot. And moved Java’s counter to 18. And is making my decision as to what to do with Java even harder.

Lets start with Sam. I am starting to see why people like the sorc. Right now at level 3 I have about 550 sp. That is a lot of burning hands and shocking grasps. I have taken to running until yellow/red skulled, keeping an sup inferno/spark clickly running, backing into a corner and burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands burning hands shocking grasp any one that doesn’t die in flames.

Remember I have 5 dr/ magic and am rocking a fair amount of Hps. I also have a fair amount ship buffs for things like fire/elc/acid 20 so I take fairly little damage. Will this trend last post level 6? I don’t think so but there are more blasty spells later. Sorc does feel like I can just blast 24/7. Damn playing smart. I can blast my way out of any problem. I hate to encounter the day I can’t…..

Okay Java, the wife joins an Abbot raid. And they wait and wait for someone/s able to handle ice. So I join as Java to try to do Ice with the wife. But someone switched to a 20 clr and made the swim so she and I got to sleep in roids.

Completion did take 2 tries however, the first run I thought was funny as only goggles failed. But roids took a hit and I guess some people didn’t get filled up before entering. And that one hit took some people to less then their level in HP. And when rage ended there was some deaths. So we restarted.

Take 2 I was worried about right from the start as 2 of the 10 wizards died right off the bat. I am guessing failed disintegrates… But they got rezed and we moved on. Ice and roids went fine. Again we took a hit in roids. But everyone had lots of hp this time… Goggles 4 men entered, 2 men lived. So I guess they had some problems.

I spotted and lived through an encasement. Beat down went fairly quickly. Abbot didn’t have time to call dick. Let alone the Inferno.

Loot there was gloves, a breeze and of coarse a Enduring Conviction. I was the first to roll and I got a 99 out of 100 and no one else either wanted it or thought they could win. Bam matched pair.

Now I really don’t know what to do with Java. His gear is really set up for how he is playing now. I am just not super happy with how he is playing with the changes to the Fist of light finisher and his dps is a lot lower then I would like…. Thinking about some kind of clr/ranger mix but only if I can get the dps good enough. I will have to think some more on it…

❤

Capped again on June 5th thanks to a few thousand xp from the Amrath slayers. Ending with the defeat of Centurion Armisos. And before much longer I was dead and gone and looking around Stormreach as a Sorc….

I know right, the most dreaded of classes. But if any one can get me through 20 levels of sorc it is Samius. And depending on how the run to cap is this might be the life to take a little break from the constant TRing and power leveling.

I enjoy leveling. There is a wonder feeling of momentum as long as leveling is simi fast paced. But once level 17 or so rolls around I tend to get a hair tired. Levels 18-20 just don’t move fast enough for me. When your looking at another millon xp at 5kish a pop it is easy to get a little disparaged. But you play for the big scores. And things work out.

Okay enough gloom. Lets look at the build. You can look at Samius by clicking the Samius link in the upper left.

Stats 14 8 14 11 13 18….Oh and Helf. Seems fairly Straight forward. Going for a pure blasty blasty life, that was Tobril’s idea. He remembered me making a comment about being tired of the constant melee and suggested I give myself a break from all the melee and run up a pure sorc.

I always want good self healing, hence Helf, as I am soloing up this life. The guild is finishing up their Trs. Most are finishing up their last few ranks. I would have waited for them but they didn’t want to TR again right away. 13 points in Wisdom lets me do the Clr: Dilettante feat which will give lots of healing via wands and scrolls. Once my Umd is up there I can swap it out for monk (healing amp /AC?) or Pally (saves).

Another perk or going Helf for this life is I will be able to play with the Dragonmarks of Storm. I use the Stormreaver Gingerbread Cookie, for the Call Lighting Storm, a lot when leveling. I see 40-50+ points of damage fairly often. I can only guess what adding in the enchantments/feats and items and going lighting savant will do for its damage…

Something else that is kinda cool. With the guild/channel’s help I have gathered a few different items with med and small guild slots. Crafted wizardly 1 on a ring and slap on a med power slot and your looking at 60+25+sorc bonus and you have lots of extra mana. Right now I am sitting at around 400+, once I can I will clear that ring and level it to wiz 2 then 3. Same deal for Hp a med slot is about 20 hp. Add in the level 1 outfit of Invulnerability made with the Cannith crafting I wore most of my bard life. Well from when the Cannith crafting came out until level 16 any way.

Right now Shocking grasp is doing about 10 points 29 with a spark pot running. So I can grasp and wand thru almost any thing at this level.

❤

Not sure how to start. But here we go. My name is Samius and some times I ride the fail train. /cry

Yeah, I don’t know how or when but what started out as a great night turned very quickly into a fail train ride.

I jumped on yesterday and caught a ToD. No problems. Very smoth. Even got to bless the chests. No rings at all however. Guess that has to happen some times???

Just as ToD wraps. Tobril logs on and I get him to start a hard Shroud. Also very smooth. Lots of laughs. I was very pleased. Again they let me try to boosts chests. Again very nice.

Then we went VoD, hard. Fail? Okay so the guy who said he could tank couldn’t. And we didn’t have a good backup plan. By the way, if you tell me your able to hold agro. You had better be able to do so.

So we moved on to a shroud. Were we did complete. Important to note, we joined an group. Not started our own. The wife tanked the Reaver on her 16/3 clonk and flew up to pull the lever. And I was put on puzzle duty. So when Fopo on his TR wiz, that he has been leveling with us, pulled madstone boots and asked channel if any one wanted I felt okay saying sure. I don’t have a pair. And he passed to me with no problem. I even offered to trade him my Head of Good Fortune. Before asking channel if anyone needed. When they didn’t I put it up for roll and moved on.

Thought that vod was a bump in the road. We moved on the abbot. At least once roids failed after the voice lag helped me kill Tobril. Restart. Another time I had goggles (#2) but I was waiting to get the sides worked out so I would be on the right side as to just run over. And got killed by trash. I had just failed a Disintegrate, and got a little rez. Working on scrolling myself some HP. Just rolled a lot of 1s I guess.

So 2 or 3 tries disparaged some of us moved on to knocking out some quests for xp and went to bed felling unsatisfied. Like most women after sex. Okay a little grown up humor for you there. 🙂

❤

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…

❤

*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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